


Angsty Autumn

by quixoticlux



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 1/3 happy ending, 1/3 open ending, 1/3 unhappy ending, Angst, Angstober, Apocalypse, Autumn, Do not click if you don’t agree to read unhappy endings, Drabbles, F/M, Force Bond bed-sharing, Halloween, Historical AU, Infidelity, Jealousy, Maybe you’ll get a full-sized Snickers bar, Modern AU, One-Shots, Or maybe you’ll get a toothbrush, Pining, Roommates, Some Fluff, Think of it like Trick-or-Treating, Victorian Vampires, Witchcraft, Zombies, angst angst angst, canonverse, coffee shop AU, not all have happy endings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26776399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoticlux/pseuds/quixoticlux
Summary: A collection of autumn-themed angsty one-shots. Some of them have happy endings. Some unhappy. And some open-ended. Every single one has a heaping dose of angst, pining, regret, and pumpkin spice. The autumn harvest symbolizes endings, but sometimes, there's new beginnings, too.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 59
Kudos: 130





	1. The Other Woman 🍂

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted last October as part of an angsty one-fic-a-day challenge. I did not complete it due to several nasty comments and CCs, because they were upset some of the drabbles/one-shots did not have happy endings. Despite it being clearly tagged as such.
> 
> Continuing to read is an acknowledgment of angst without a happy ending in 1/3 drabbles/one-shots in this collection. (1/3 will be happy and 1/3 open-ended.) Originally, I was delineating in the author’s notes at the beginning of each what kind of ending it was, but as that might cause readers to skip out on a story they might enjoy otherwise, I’ve decided to make each one a surprise. Just like trick-or-treating... maybe you’ll get a full-sized Snicker’s bar. Or maybe a toothbrush. It’s part of the fun. (And besides, it’s tagged at the top and this is my disclaimer.)
> 
> Failure to read the tags and this disclaimer is therefore the fault of the reader, and any harassment of the author shall be deleted without response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 1st prompt:** “I can’t do this anymore.” **Trigger warnings:** infidelity and pregnancy

The living room is a sea of pink.

Pink balloons, pink streamers, pink cupcakes. There’s pink drinks to wash them down with, but to Rey’s great horror, they’re not alcoholic. She drinks it anyway out of politeness, the saccharinely-sweet punch making her want to throw up. Or maybe that’s the shrill piercing of Bazine’s best friends and former sorority sisters gathered around her like loyal subjects, eager to please their Queen Bee with the most expensive baby gifts Nordstrom’s has to offer.

Rey can’t believe she’s actually here right now.

Why did she agree to come? What on earth possessed her think this would be a good idea? Rey puts a hand to her forehead, feeling the temperature of her skin. Maybe she’s coming down with a Victorian-era brain fever or something more horrific like Mad Cow disease, because seriously, _what the fuck._

The crowd _oohs_ and _ahhs_ as shiny pink wrapping paper is carefully plucked back by freshly-manicured nails. Bazine’s chestnut waves look freshly styled as well, tousled over her long, flowing pale pink dress, which perfectly accentuates her baby bump. Her wrists and neck are adorned with gold jewelry, and on the ring finger of her left hand, there’s a diamond rock that could solve poverty in a small third-world country. She reminds Rey of an Ancient Roman goddess—someone both cruelly beautiful and beautifully cruel.

Rey, meanwhile, is wearing black. She’s out of place amongst the other woman, who are all dressed in pastels or flowery prints, but she’d be out of place no matter what. She pretends she’s going for art-gallery chic, but in reality, the color’s out of mourning.

Why Ben ever married Bazine, Rey will never understand. What do they have in common? Sure, they both went to Columbia and they’re both from Old Money. East Coast Blue Blood royalty, save for Ben’s father. But other than that, what’s holding them together? What was the moment that made him realize that Bazine is The One, and not her?

As Bazine is handed another gift, Rey glances over at hers on the table in front of the bay windows. She bought the cheapest thing on the registry: a sterling silver rattle. She’s pretty sure Bazine picked it more for looks than practicality, but she had to come with _something_.

Finn and Rose both thought she was absolutely mad to go. But how could she say no when Bazine practically cornered her in the import aisle of the supermarket a few days ago, wondering why she hadn’t RSVP’ed to the invitation sent out over a month ago?

When put on the spot, Rey will agree to anything. To drive someone to the airport at 5 AM or to cover for a co-worker even when she has plans. And, apparently, to go to the baby shower of the woman whose husband she is sleeping with.

Rey finds her way to the bathroom, careful not to look at anything too closely in the house. She avoids the framed photographs hanging everywhere as if one look at Ben and Bazine’s wedding will turn her to stone. After she splashes cold water on her face, she grips the sides of the porcelain sink and looks up into the mirror, wondering how it is she can bear to look at herself at all.

*

It had started seven months ago.

She’d been sipping a latte and re-reading _Persuasion_ in one of the cozy nooks of Maz’s coffee shop when the motes in the air shifted. She sensed him before she saw him, as if the tiny string attached to her ribcage above her heart was being pulled taut.

She thought it’d been severed. She had felt him cut it on a rainy April afternoon in her apartment two and a half years ago, when he broke up with her right after they made love. In hindsight, it was the most tender he’d ever been, taking his time to explore her body as if he’d never seen it before. As if they hadn’t been dating for eight months. Even when she had wanted him to go faster, harder, he refused to do anything other than slowly move in and out of her as he held her close, every inch of their skin touching.

After, he had sat on the edge of her bed, his back to her her as he stared out into the white sky and rivulets of water running down the windowpane, and told her he didn’t love her anymore.

She hadn’t believed him at first. She thought it was some sick joke, maybe a belated April Fools. But Ben’s sense of humor was more sarcastic. He was never the pranking type. He was never cruel. Except when he’d turned around, his eyes cold in an expressionless mask, and repeated himself, his voice louder and more sure.

And this time, she believed it.

Why wouldn't she? It was crazy that he loved her to begin with. Even her friends thought they made an odd couple. She was the eclectic vagabond type who bought all her clothes at thrift stores, while he wore expensive suits that cost more than her monthly rent. She worked as a mechanic and lived in a five-floor walk-up in the uncool part of Brooklyn, while he worked as a lawyer and lived in a penthouse on the Upper West Side. They should never have been together. Their worlds should never have collided.

And yet they did. He’d stormed into the auto repair shop where she worked at the time, which she’d later find out was his father’s, to argue with Han over something or other. She’d been working on the engine of Han’s beloved ’77 Ford Falcon, elbow-deep in grease, her hair frizzy and her oversized overalls covered in stains. And yet Ben still asked her out. She thought it was a joke at first, because surely a man like that could have any woman he wanted. Were none of the Victoria’s Secret supermodels available?

They had eight months and six days of the most passionate conversations and arguments. There were entire days spent in bed. No two hearts in the world were more in love, no two souls more connected.

Which is why it was a shock when he’d dumped her. And just when they’d begun to talk about moving in together, too. She’d walked around numbly for a few months, not allowing herself to think or feel, until a few months later when she saw it. Splashed in the engagement pages of The New York Times: Benjamin Solo and Bazine Netal, beautiful together even in black and white.

She left the garage. While she loved Han like the father she never had, she couldn’t continue to work there anymore. She saw Ben in Han’s face, in Leia’s eyes. She couldn’t bear to overhear anything about him or his new bride, even though they took great pains to never mention anything around her. And then there was always the possibility of running into him. No, she couldn’t risk it. It was better to cut ties and move on. After all, it wasn’t like Han and Leia were family. They belonged to Ben. Hell, they even belonged more to his wife now.

Two and a half years passed.

Rey moved on, or so she told herself. She dated Poe before quickly realizing that was a mistake. She had one one-night-stand she met in a bar around last Christmas. She moved to another shitty apartment in Brooklyn. She found work at a garage chain, all shiny neon and chrome.

And then seven months ago, he collided into her world again like a meteor, destroying every wall she had built up brick-by-brick.

They’d meet in the afternoons on her day off—sometimes at her apartment, sometimes at an expensive hotel that he paid for. She honestly preferred the hotels, because letting him into her private space felt like she was letting him back into her heart. And she wasn’t. This was sex, that was all. Just fucking.

Right after she came, she’d jump up and pull on her trousers and button up her shirt, ignoring his sad puppy-dog eyes as much as they ignored the elephant in the room of Mrs. Solo. There were no “I love you”s. Not even an “I miss you.” Just a confirmation of when they’d do it again, because _of course_ they were going to do it again. She didn't think they could stop even if they wanted to.

And then Han died.

Something changed between them that day. Or maybe the tenderness was always there, but hidden away, buried deep. She’d held him for hours as he sobbed into her neck, and then made him a grilled cheese and tomato soup—something Leia used to do for her whenever she was sick or feeling sad. He fell asleep in her bed, and when the morning came, she was shocked to find he was still there.

There were no more hotels after that. They only met in her apartment now. And most of the time, he stayed the night.

Rey often wondered where Bazine thought he was. What excuses he was giving her. If it ever crossed her mind her husband was having an affair. How much she knew.

She never wanted to meet Bazine. Never even wanted to hear her name. But one day, she had picked up Ben’s iPhone thinking it was hers, and answered a call from his wife.

Her mind had completely blanked, every thought annihilated as if a nuclear bomb had been dropped. But then Ben had rushed in and grabbed the phone, and with the same quick thinking and silver tongue that made him one of the best lawyers in New York City, explained that Rey was his sister. Foster sister. Which was, well, _kind of_ true. She _did_ stay with the Solos years ago before she had gotten on her feet. But she’d also been nineteen, and Ben had moved out years ago, long before she'd even immigrated to America.

And so Bazine thought Rey was Ben’s sister.

The charade had to be kept up. Even when it killed her to accept Bazine’s friend requests. To scroll through photo after photo of Ben and Bazine together, a bright, shiny filter over every one.

It’s why Bazine had sent her a baby shower invitation. It’s why she had cornered her in Aisle 12, her eight-month-old baby bump making it impossible for Rey to live in denial of it any longer. It’s why Rey had no excuse but to go. Not what this would be her “niece.”

God, she’s a horrible person.

The first thing she does when she gets home from the shower is open the bottle of wine she picked up on the way. She washes it down with the few inches of vodka left in the fridge.

She blocks Ben’s number, then deletes it. Though what good does that do when she knows it by heart?

*

Rey’s awoken by the sound of heavy knocking on her door. Blearily, she makes her way over from the couch. As she peers through the peephole, she sees Ben standing there, distorted through the lens.

“Go away,” she yells, intending to sound firm but it’s hard to do when the words come out slurred.

“Rey, I’ve been calling you for _hours_. I thought something had happened, I thought—”

“Go home. To your wife.”

“Since when did you care about that?”

She laughs bitterly. “I’ve always cared about that, you idiot.”

There’s a long pause on the other side. She wonders if he’s left, but then she hears a soft, “Let me in.”

“No.”

“What’s wrong? Is this about the baby shower?”

“ _Of course_ it’s about the fucking baby shower.” She takes a deep breath. When she exhales, she says, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Please Rey, just let me in. We can talk about this.”

She slides down the door, onto the floor. “There’s nothing left to talk about. You’re married. And having a kid. Congratulations. Soon you’ll have a dog and a white picket fence and yearly holidays in the Bahamas, and you can tell stories to your friends about how you went slumming once.”

“That’s not how it is, and you know it.”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t even know you.”

There’s a deafening silence behind the door. She’s tempted to look through the peephole again, but she already knows what she’ll find—the same sad eyes, as if she’s hurt him and not the other way around.

Finally, she hears him quietly say, “That’s not true. Please don’t say that.”

Rey sits there for a few moments longer, then gets up and walks unsteadily into her kitchen. She grabs the pinot noir, then goes back over to the door and sits down again, swigging from the dark green bottle, no longer bothering with glasses.

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you,” she says after she gathers the courage. He hasn’t said anything, but she knows he’s there. She can feel him in her bones.

“Anything,” he replies.

“Why did you dump me if you spend all your free time with me now? Am I just that good of a fuck?” She takes another swig, waiting for his answer.

“It was never about that.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It wasn’t. I…” She hears him sigh. She imagines he’s running a hand through his hair—one of his ticks she knows so well, just like he knows all of hers. “Snoke told me to. Bazine’s his niece, and we used to date in college. That’s actually how I got into the firm. Anyway… there was a time a while back—long before I met you—when I did things I wasn’t proud of. And Snoke said that if I married Bazine, not only would those things never come out, but I’d be made partner one day.”

Rey feels floored even while sitting on the floor. She feels like she’s falling through the three stories of her apartment building. “What? You’re saying he… blackmailed you?!”

He sighs again. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And say what? That I’m a massive fucking piece of shit who destroyed evidence and intimidated witnesses? That I could go to jail if I didn’t marry someone else?” She both hears and feels a thump against the door, and she realizes it’s his head. “I’d rather you think of me as some asshole who broke your heart instead of… a monster.”

“So…” Her thoughts are swimming, but there’s one that breaks the surface. “You did love me?”

 _“Of course_ I fucking loved you. I _never_ stopped loving you. I never will.” He says it so intensely, so fiercely, that she finds herself out of breath.

Her body moves on its own. She stands up, unlocks the doorknob lock and deadbolt, and swings the door open.

Ben falls backwards, into her apartment.

He quickly stands up and stares at her, his dark, haunted eyes saying every “I love you” he didn’t say these past two and half years, and as he takes her into his arms, she realizes he’s been saying it all along.

*

After, they lie in her bed together, their limbs tangled underneath the blanket.

“So what happens now?” she asks into the darkness of the room illuminated only by the string lights hanging across her windows.

“I’m getting a divorce,” he answers. “After the baby is born. I’ve already been staying with my parents for a while.”

Rey turns to him, shocked. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t think you felt the same way anymore. And I was too scared to ask.”

“What about Snoke?”

“I’m leaving the firm. What’s he going to do? If I go down, he goes down with me.”

For the first time in years, hope starts to flutter in her chest. “So… we can be together?”

He looks down at her, smiling. “We’re together now.”


	2. 2 October 1849 🦇

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 2nd prompt:** “You said you loved me.”

**2 October 1849**

It was a cold and dreary day, the sky swollen with dark clouds that threatened to unleash a torrent of rain any second. The wind howled through the cracks in the windowpanes as the cast iron kettle boiled on the hot-plate above the crackling fire.

Rey sat at the wooden table in the kitchen, her bowl of porridge forgotten as she moved a jagged piece of charcoal across the starched white pages of her sketchbook. Her fingertips were covered in black charcoal dust and she was certain her forehead and cheek were as well, but no one save the servants would be awake for another hour or so. She tried to take advantage of every moment of solitude she could steal, as they were so rare in so large a household. The only other time she had to herself was at night, but by then, she was too worn out to stay up for long, often falling asleep on the window-seat with her sketchbook in her lap, the lone taper candle burning itself out.

Rey took the kettle off, then poured the boiling water into the porcelain teapot already containing heaping tablespoons of fragrant Earl Grey tea, fresh from the Twinings shop in London. Her employers might be stingy with her wages, but they spared no expense when it came to food and drink. As the tea steeped and its perfume bloomed in the kitchen, she stared down at her drawing. It wasn’t coming out the way she pictured it in her head, the years making her memory hazier, details unraveling like threads on her sleeve.

Soon she feared she would forget him altogether.

Two years had passed since Ben’s death. She could remember how it felt the second she was told of it by letter—the stab in the chest and gut like a knife, every word twisting it further in as the ink became blurred with her tears. Consumption, Mrs. Organa-Solo had written. He’d fallen quickly, despite having been in robust health all his life. Despite the future spread out promisingly in front of him—a future that would have included Rey, she knew it. Even if he hadn't proposed just yet.

A fat drop of water dripped onto the sketchbook parchment, blurring the charcoal and making it run almost like watercolour. She hadn’t even realized she’d started to cry.

It was the anniversary of his death—the 2nd of October, 1847. How she wished she could visit his grave in Derbyshire, but the distance was too great, and she hadn’t the time nor the money to undertake such a journey. She’d have to make do with a walk in the woods, where she could talk to him in the solitude of nature, which was the closest to God she ever felt. Not in the church, though she’d never speak that aloud lest she be accused of being a pagan.

After she drank her tea and cleaned up, she made a quick trip to her room to hide her sketchbook, then fastened her black cloak over her neck and pulled the hood over her braided bun. As she opened the heavy wooden door into the crisp October morning, she welcomed the wind and how it made her feel alive.

The cold never bothered her. She was used to it, having grown up in an orphanage where a fire was considered a luxury. Her dresses might be as plain and modest as the charitable institution where she was educated, but they were made of hardy, thick wool, meant to withstand the harsh Yorkshire winds.

Shriveled brown leaves and twigs crunched under her boots as she walked along a path in the woods, the cold from the ground seeping through the leather. The trees were covered in orange leaves that drifted down with every strong gust. Soon she was lost in her thoughts—how Rose was liking her new position in Bath, and whether Kaydel’s baby had arrived yet. But then they inevitably drifted to Ben, as they always did. She was as powerless to stop it as she could the rain.

The sky lit up with a flash of lightning, followed by a powerful rumble of thunder that Rey could feel echo in her bones. Seconds later, the sky opened up and sheets of water poured down, soaking her wool as the dirt turned to mud and clung to the hem of her dress and cloak. While she loved walking in the rain, she knew she needed to turn back in order to have enough time to change into another dress before the rest of the Hastings family awoke.

Dismayed, Rey turned around and began making her way back to the house. She would have to wait until nightfall when she had privacy again before she could allow herself to think about him. Before she could allow herself to feel all that she had lost.

A horse neighed in the distance.

The ground underneath her boots rumbled, but this perplexed her, as there was no thunder.

She didn't have time to consider this, as suddenly, she heard the gallop of hooves directly behind her, and as she turned around, she caught a blur of black pass her by mere inches. She fell backwards into the mud, the entire back of her cloak and sleeves now thickly covered. Her heart pounded at not only the near-miss, but of knowing that Miss Georgiana Hastings would punish her for it, if she were to catch sight of the state of her. She'd reported Rey to her parents several times in a bid to get her dismissed, blaming her old governess for everything from unprofessional behaviour to missing silver. Rey's wages had already been docked three times. The eighteen-year-old heiress of Hastings Park was as cruel as she was beautiful, and had disliked Rey from the very moment of her arrival two years ago. But perhaps if Rey made haste, she would have enough time to regain hold of the reins of the day.

As she ran towards the house—her boots sloshing in the mud, her lungs burning, the wind whipping against her skin—she apologized to Ben in her heart, promising to talk to him tonight by the light of the full moon, when the veil of the living and the dead was at its lowest.

*

When Rey opened the side door and entered the kitchen, she was surprised to find it a flurry of activity. The smell of sizzling meat and garlic filled the air, her mouth watering.

“Well you’re a right mess, aren’t you dear?” Miss Maz, the kindly housekeeper, tutted as she helped Rey untie her bonnet.

“What’s going on?” Rey wondered as she gratefully accepted a tea towel and wiped her face.

“An unexpected guest has arrived. An old acquaintance of the family, I reckon.”

“A man or woman?”

“A man. He arrived shortly before you, looking rather pale and sickly if I don’t say so myself. Oh dear, I don’t think that’s going to do you any good. Best to go take a bath and change. I’ll tell Jyn to bring you hot water.”

As Rey made her way through the hall, she passed dozens of servants dusting and polishing silver and moving furniture about. She wondered what was so special about this guest. If perhaps he was a member of the aristocracy. Why else would the house be turned upside down?

Surely whoever it was was rich. The Hastings were always attending balls to find a husband for Georgiana, who had just come out into society last spring. Being so young and beautiful, she didn’t have any trouble attracting attention, but whether the suitor was wealthy and well-bred enough for her family was another matter entirely. Perhaps this guest would ask Georgiana to marry him, and then he can take her far away and Rey could finally have some peace.

She made her way up the oak staircase, careful to weave around the servants on their hands and knees, polishing the wood. Just as she was about to turn the corner into the hall that led to her room, she collided into someone.

“Watch where you’re going, _dirty orphan_ ,” Georgiana sneered down at her from her aristocratic nose, her delicate features twisting into something ugly. She made a show of brushing the silk of her pale green dress, even though Rey hadn’t gotten any mud on her.

“Forgive me, Miss Hastings,” Rey mumbled, staring down at the grooves in the wood, wishing she could disappear through the cracks.

“I swear, you're positively _feral_. You better keep to your room today, lest you frighten off Mr. Ren with your savagery.” Her skirt made a shimmying sound as she passed Rey. “If he wanted to see an animal, he could go to the zoo.”

“I wish I could oblige you,” said Rey in a small voice, despite knowing better than to argue, “but I have Philip and Louisa to teach.”

“Then _teach_. But stay out of the way. And keep them out of the way, too.” And then Georgiana smoothed out the disgust in her face, plastered on a mask of sweetness, and descended the staircase with her lace-gloved hand delicately drifting down the railing.

Rey hurried to her room and picked out a black dress and cotton chemise from her wardrobe. She carried it to the bathroom down the hall and waited for Jyn, wishing this day could be over with already. But surely the guest—Mr. Ren, Georgiana had said—would be staying longer than one night. It wasn’t unusual for guests to stay for weeks or even months, Hastings Park being rather isolated in the Yorkshire wilderness and thus requiring a long journey to and from. And when fashionable people got together, rarely were they in any rush to part.

*

The afternoon passed uneventfully. Rey taught geography, mathematics, and French in the schoolroom as rivulets of water ran down the windowpanes, blurring the twisted black branches and golden leaves outside.

When at last the lessons were over for the day and the cloak of evening fell, Rey sat by the fire with her sketchbook and charcoal, trying to tune out the sounds of gaiety from down below. The wood crackled warmly as embers rose and faded.

The door opened with a creak.

The din from the drawing room downstairs loudly forced its way into Rey’s solitude as Miss Maz walked in with a candle. Peels of laughter and a jolly piano tune could be heard. Georgiana no doubt, showing off one of her accomplishments to Mr. Ren, hoping to snare him like a fish on a hook.

“I’m very sorry to bother you, Miss Niima. But your presence is requested in the drawing room.”

“Whatever for?”

“To mind the children, I presume. They’re running around rather unruly like.”

“Shall I keep them occupied here?”

“No, the mistress wants them to be exposed to more society so they can learn how to better behave in it. But I imagine they’d want you to keep them out of the way.”

Rey followed Miss Maz down the darkened hall and staircase, the flame of the candle flickering upon the walls and the oil pantings that hung on them. When they entered the drawing room, her eyes scanned the space she’d only glimpsed once in the two years she’d resided here.

Thick, crimson velvet curtains cascaded down over tall windows, held back by golden rope, framing the rainy night beyond. Persian rugs covered the wooden floors as leather armchairs and velvet sofas were strategically arranged all around. The wood-paneled walls were cast in a warm glow of several candelabras, the candlelight flattering to every countenance, making even the ugliest people appear amiable.

Mr. and Mrs. Hastings were seated together on one of the sofas. As he smoked his cigar and sipped from his crystal tumblr of brandy, his wife sat primly and shot warning glares at her two younger children, the darling monsters. Just as suspected, Georgiana was seated at the piano, a smile painted upon her face like a porcelain doll, her eyelashes lowered, knowing perfectly well all eyes were upon her.

Miss Maz ushered the children over, and with a consoling hand upon Rey’s arm, left her to watch them. Rey sat down on a green velvet sofa further away than the Hastings, and with a deep sigh, began to count down the minutes until the children would be put to bed and she could retire to her room.

But something felt… different. Strange. Whatever it was, it pricked at her skin, making the muscles in her back tense and the hairs on her neck stand up.

Someone was watching her.

Rey turned her head slowly. Behind her, looming in the shadows in the back of the room, was the guest of honour. He was staring straight at her, his eyes as black as coals and glittering in the candlelight. Wild waves of black hair framed his long, pale visage, which had constellation of freckles that she knew better than the constellations in the sky.

_Ben._

She quietly gasped, her heart thumping madly in her chest, blood roaring in her ears.

But how could this be?!

Rey stood up suddenly, then instantly regretted this, as it only added to her lightheadedness. “I’m sorry,” she said to her employers. “I’m feeling quite ill, I’m afraid. I don’t want to get the children sick.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Hastings agreed, her lips pursed with displeasure. "Send in one of the other servants."

Rey did not bother to correct her that she was not a servant. She was already out of the room, her footsteps echoing on the stone slabs on the floor of the hall as she rushed to the kitchen and out the door, not able to feel relief from this sudden fever that had overtaken her until the rain pelted upon her skin like a thousand pinpricks from a sewing needle.

“Rey,” that voice she would know anywhere called out to her, as deep and tumultuous as the sea crashing over the Yorkshire cliffs in the East. She felt like she was being pushed off them and she was falling, falling.

She turned around, coming face-to-face with the man she never thought she would ever see again. She hadn’t even a photograph of him, only sketch after sketch that she drew furiously into the late night, trying desperately not to forget.

“Who are you?” she demanded, all propriety forgotten.

The man with Ben's face drew closer. "Do you not recognize me?"

Rey shook her head as she took a step back, refusing to believe her eyes, her heart. She must be going mad. "I do not know you, sir."

"Oh, I believe we know each other _very_ well, Miss Niima." He tilted his head. "Although not as well as I have always wished to." As his dark gaze dragged down her body, there was no mistaking his meaning.

She crossed her arms over herself, feeling naked despite being covered in yards of wool. “Are you a ghost?”

The man laughed, but it didn’t seem to be out of humour. “Something like that.”

“Are you… Did Ben have a twin brother? But surely the Organa-Solos would have mentioned it…”

“No, Rey. I _am_ Ben,” he said. “Well, Kylo Ren now.”

Rey shook her head again. “No, that’s impossible. You’re dead. You died.”

“I did,” he agreed.

“What?”

The man once again moved closer, but Rey took another step back. He lifted his hands—those large hands she remembered holding, kissing, hoping they would someday take hers in matrimony—and with an unblinking stare, slowly inched his way closer to her as if she were a wild animal in fear of being startled. He then took her right hand in his, gently pressing his plush lips against the back of her hand, never once looking away.

His touch, his kiss—it was ice cold.

“What are you?” she wondered half to him, half to herself. “You are no man.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Hurt, perhaps. Or humanity. But just as quickly as she saw it, it was snuffed out.

“You’re right, I’m not.” He straightened up, his tall and broad stature looming over her. With a black waistcoat, black shirt, and black cravat, he looked every inch the Devil. Some believed he would be grotesque, but Rey knew the truth—if the Devil existed, he would be beautiful. He would be Temptation, personified.

“What happened to you?” she whispered.

“I remember being very ill. My mother, standing watch over my bedside, wiping at my brow with warm, wet rags and praying. There was a minister, I believe. And Han… well, I don’t remember him being there, but is that really all that surprising?”

Rey wanted to instinctively defend the man who had been the closest thing to a father she ever had, but she bit her lip, knowing how Ben always hated that. She assumed whoever this man was, he would hate that, too.

“I was buried in a casket,” he continued, pacing around her now in a circle as a panther would around prey. “Someone—or should I say, some _thing_ —took pity upon me. He had smelled me miles away, even six feet under the earth as I began to rot in the ground.”

“How could he possibly smell you?”

“He’s an ancient and powerful creature. He made me in his image.”

“Are you telling me… you’re a demon?”

“Yes,” he said, stopping short behind her. She could feel his cold breath on the back of her neck. “Or as we prefer to call ourselves… a vampyre.”

Rey thought back to the fairy tales she’d read as a child, stolen from the library of Plutt before she was sent to the orphanage. “So you’ll never grow old. You’ll never die.”

“That’s right.”

She whipped around to face him. “Make me like you.”

Kylo recoiled. “I’d never deprive you of life. Of the sun.”

“But I’d have the moon. I’d have you.”

She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “And what about children?”

“I only ever wanted them with you. That dream died the day you did.” She reached for his hand.

Kylo looked down as she rubbed her thumb in slow circles on his skin, seemingly transfixed by such a human gesture. “I can’t.”

“Can’t… or won’t?”

“Won’t.”

Rey could feel the sadness swelling up, threatening to drown her. Her eyes filled with tears, though she couldn’t tell if they had yet fallen with the rain running down her cheeks. “Then why are you here? Why have you come?”

“I’ve come to talk over a business arrangement with Mr. Hastings on behalf of Mr. Snoke,” he admitted.

Rey dropped his hand as if it had burned her. “So you didn’t come for me.”

“No. But I’ve always known where you were. I’d watch you. Through the windows, on the walks you’d take through the woods. You really must be more mindful of your surroundings." He glanced towards the darkness in the distance. "There are worse creatures than me lurking about.”

“Then why not protect me by turning me? Would I not grow stronger?”

"Yes," he confessed. “But everything comes with a price. Could you take a life, even knowing you must in order to survive? Could you bear the guilt?”

“I would feast on criminals, not the innocent,” she declared, trying not to dwell on the repulsion of drinking blood. She would miss garlic, that was for certain.

"But pray, think of all you'd be giving up."

“I've only ever wanted love," she insisted. "And I know I could never love another the way I loved— _love_ —you. _Please_. You said you loved me once. Do you remember?"

For a brief moment, his black eyes seemed to grow softer, warmer. Almost like the brown they once were.

"Is there a part of you that does still?" she continued. "Or did it die that day, too?”

“Some things can never die,” he murmured, staring deep into her eyes, so deep she felt it pierce her soul.

Rey turned her head to the side, baring her neck. When she looked back at him, she saw a hungry look contort his features. A hunger that made her shiver with anticipation. “Then let me be with you. _Please._ ”

There it was again. That flicker of something she thought she recognized from long ago. Maybe that sweet, shy boy who wrote her wrote her long love letters in perfect calligraphy wasn’t dead after all.

“Are you absolutely certain?” he demanded. “I need you to be certain. There would be no going back.”

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I am determined.”

Kylo pressed his lips together. “All right. Meet me outside at three in the morning. I shall take one of Mr. Hastings carriages, for the journey we must embark on is long and the sun will burn my skin if it shines too much on it. Your skin will too, once I turn you.”

“Is that a promise?” she asked, her heart pounding. She wondered if he could hear it, the blood pumping through her veins.

“It is, my love. Not the promise I should have made you years ago, but a promise nevertheless.”

Something suddenly occurred to her. “How did you ride here if the sun burns you? I saw you in the woods this morning, on your black horse.”

“It was overcast and I was wearing my hood,” he explained. “Usually we sleep from dawn to dusk, but Mr. Snoke had insisted this business needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.”

Rey didn’t very much like the sound of this Mr. Snoke, but that was another topic for another day. Or night.

“They’ll be wondering where we are,” he said, holding out his arm. Rey slipped hers through his instinctively. “Remember, my love—three in the morning.”

Just as they were about to go back inside, she felt herself being pulled back, and then suddenly she was in Kylo’s arms, his lips covering hers, his tongue pushing hot into her mouth and sliding over hers. She got over the shock quickly, instinctively kissing him just as fiercely back, their tongues tangling together as pings of pleasure shot down her spine. She felt like she was being devoured. She grabbed onto his biceps, worried she might faint. Where were Miss Maz’s smelling salts when she needed them?

Ben had never kissed her like this. Their kisses had always been short and chaste, even when she had desired more.

As Kylo pulled away, Rey looked deep into his eyes, thinking maybe it’s all right this isn’t Ben anymore. After all, had she not changed, too?

“Remember your promise,” she said, her fingers gripping his lapel tightly.

“‘Till death do us part,” he replied, then smiled devilishly.


	3. Pumpkin Spice ☕️

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 3rd prompt:**  
>  “You weren’t here when I needed you the most.”

It’s a good thing Rey Johnson works as a barista, because every item in her wardrobe is already black.

As Father Kennedy conducts the funeral Mass, she sits in a lone pew in the back, numb to it all. There’s only a few people here, and no one she recognizes. Whoever her father was, he clearly didn’t have many friends.

Still, she wishes she could have gotten to know him. Even if he was an alcoholic who gave her up when she was five, leaving her in the waiting room of a hospital with her birth certificate tucked inside her jacket. She doesn’t blame him really, at least not anymore.

A woman in one of the front pew sniffles. She looks to be in her sixties, with thinning gray hair and a cane. Rey wonders if she could be her grandmother, or if she’s just a kindly old woman who knew him. She doesn’t ask.

The casket in the front of the altar is closed. Even dead, she doesn’t know what he looks like.

When Rey opens the wide, heavy wooden doors of the Gothic Revival church, the October air feels like a splash of cold water. It sobers her, seeping through her hoodie and filling her lungs as a strong gust swirls shriveled orange and brown leaves in the parking lot.

She unlocks her bike from the twisted iron gate, then swings her leg over it and pedals down the street, the wind whooshing past her as the pale outline of the moon begins to overtake the sun in the sky and all the electric lights turn on, glowing brightly in the pale blue light of dusk.

*

Han dies two weeks later, on otherwise unremarkable Tuesday.

It happens so suddenly, which baffles Rey because how can someone be there one moment and then gone the next? He leaves behind an emptiness that’s tangible, an invisible void that she can feel pulling her in everywhere she goes—slowly, like the event horizon of a black hole, atom-by-atom, minuscules pieces of herself lost every second until she fears there’ll be nothing left of herself but an outline.

There’s no Catholic funeral, unlike with her father. He was never the religious type. There is, however, an Irish wake with plenty of whiskey and beer and even a band. The eulogies consist of funny stories with a somber, sentimental moment breaking out unexpectedly, and Rey doesn’t know if her tears are from laughing or crying.

She holds Leia’s hand the entire time, huddled together in one of the booths of Maz’s Tavern.

She waits for Ben to show but he never does.

*

There’s an old saying that death comes in threes.

Rey keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. She rides to the café every morning half-expecting to be hit by a car on the way. Her heart quickens every time her phone rings. She doesn’t think she can take another loss.

But weeks go by and everything goes on as it had before, which feels like a betrayal of some sort. She finds that there are long stretches in the day where she doesn’t even think about Han, and then she feels unbearably guilty, about how easy it is to forget. To focus so much instead on mundane things like money and bills and if she has enough to pay for both rent and food that week.

Maybe the third death had been hers. Maybe she’s in purgatory, living to work and working to live, too tired to do anything other than zone out to Netflix when she gets home, smoking weed and eating microwaved dinners alone, trying not to think, to let the wave build up too high and overtake her until she’s sobbing on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, her hand over mouth as she worries about waking her roommate Rose. Maybe she died that day in August when Ben left for college all the way across the country, as if he couldn't get far enough away.

She knows he had his problems with Leia and Han. She understands why he wanted to leave them. But did he have to leave her, too?

*

November used to be Rey's favorite month. It contained what used to be her two favorite holidays, only days apart: Thanksgiving and Ben's birthday.

But this year, all she has to look forward to is a Stouffer's turkey, mashed potatoes, and corn in individual plastic slots as she watches a family on TV in some holiday movie.

It's a strange time. A transitional month in between Halloween and Christmas. The drink specials haven't yet changed to a winter theme, so she’s still making pumpkin spice lattes and steamed apple ciders.

The basic bitches in Uggs are particularly Karen-esque today, and Rey's _thisclose_ to untying her apron and walking out, rent for December be damned.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to ignore that she's covered in milk and whipped cream, there’s a smudge of chocolate on her cheek, and her hair is damp with sweat underneath her cap. They’re short a person, because Jess has supposedly come down with the flu, despite the photos posted last night on her Instagram telling another story—one of Jello shots, duck faces, and skimpy dresses unsuited for the late autumn chill.

The mid-afternoon rush has finally started to die down. There’s only a few customers in the place, scattered around in comfy, worn armchairs, scrolling on their phones or typing the next Great American Novel on their laptop.

Music is playing softly on the overhead speaker, and for the first time in an hour, Rey can hear it. As she wipes the counter down with a rag soaked in sanitizer, she spaces out to The Cranberries.

The bell above the door jangles as it opens.

Rey doesn’t look up. She’ll deal with them when they get up to the register.

She heads to the back room to grab two more gallons of whole milk and a quart of soy, and when she comes back out into the front again, she drops them onto the floor. One breaks open, spilling white, viscous liquid everywhere.

Fuck.

“Do you need help?” a deep, dulcet voice she would know anywhere cuts right through her.

Rey looks up, right into the eyes of the boy who broke her heart. Her next-door-neighbor, her best friend since the age of twelve. Her first kiss, her first—well, everything.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

Ben looks confused, as if it’s perfectly normal to him to be there. As if he’s in every day, like he used to be.

“I wanted to see you,” he says. “The coffee is a bonus.”

“Sorry, we’re out of coffee.”

Ben raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Really.”

“Really.”

“Can I get you anything, sir?” she asks the middle-aged man who has appeared behind him, looking up at the menu.

“A medium dark roast, please,” he says.

“That’s be $2.50.” She takes his money, the register dinging as it slides open. She pushes it closed and turns around, filling a waxy paper cup with the coffee in the carafe on the counter. The roasted scent fills her nose as she feels Ben staring at her back.

When she turns back around to hand the man his coffee, she purposefully avoids Ben’s eye, then goes in the back to grab a mop and fill up the bucket with hot, soapy water.

She continues to ignore him as she begins mopping up the milky mess, cursing mentally at herself, at Jess, at Ben.

Suddenly he’s behind her, grabbing the mop from her hands. He starts mopping himself.

“You can’t be back here! You don’t work here.”

“Then you can pay me with a coffee.” He shrugs. “Or you can agree to meet me after your shift ends.”

Rey laughs, bitter and burnt like coffee that sits on the burner too long. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Please, Rey. We have a lot of things to talk about.”

“We have _nothing_ to talk about. You said it all that day you left. Or rather, your silence did, when I found out from _Leia_ you left.”

Ben winces. “That’s what I want to talk about.”

She shakes her head. “You weren’t here when I needed you the most. You have no fucking idea of what I’ve been going through.”

“And you don’t have any idea of what I’ve been going through.”

“Oh yeah,” she drawls. “Must be tough, living in the dorms of an expensive, prestigious college. I feel so sorry for you.”

“Rey,” he sighs. “You don’t have to talk to me, just listen.”

She tries to grab the mop back, but he’s too strong. It’s a half-hearted attempt anyway, because she really doesn’t feel like cleaning anymore today.

“I’m going to sit here until you close,” he says. “And then I’m going to offer you a ride. And I can take you right home, if that’s what you want. But I’d prefer it if we could go somewhere.”

Rey wants to say no, but she knows deep down that she’ll end up going with him. And he knows it, too. He knows her too well.

“Fine,” she finally agrees. “But don’t expect me to do anything other than glare at you.”

“Deal.”

He finishes mopping up the mess, and just as promised, he sits in one of the comfy green velvet armchairs, the one directly facing the front. Between customers and closing work, she watches him turn the pages of an old hardcover book.

Every time she looks at him, she finds him already looking at her.

*

After the lights are turned off and the door locked, Rey follows Ben to his silver BMW.

As she settles in the passenger seat, she’s hit with his scent—spicy and woodsy like campfires, but also clean, like citrus. It’s so familiar it makes her want to cry.

He turns up the dial so whatever soundtrack he wants for this moment can play, but Rey turns it off immediately.

“You wanted to talk,” she says. “So talk.”

She watches him press his lips together, then turn towards her, the engine on and heat blasting out, but otherwise not going anywhere.

“I had to leave,” he says. “Dad and I were getting into some pretty bad fights and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“How could you not go to his funeral?”

He closes his eyes. She watches his chest move as he inhales deeply, as if he’s about to take a plunge into something he really doesn't want to. When he exhales, he opens his eyes again, and she sees they’re glossy, full of unshed tears. “I… didn’t handle things very well.” 

Rey laughs humorlessly. “Understatement of the fucking year.”

“I know. Just another regret added to the fucking list.”

“Is it a long list?”

He nods. “How I left things between us is at the top.”

“Why did you leave without saying goodbye? I know UCLA was your dream, and you know I would have never kept you from your dreams. But you didn’t even say goodbye.” Her voice cracks, betraying her.

“I know.” He runs a hand through his hair. Stares out the windshield, at some unknown point in the distance. “It was too hard. I couldn’t say goodbye to you. I would have never left.”

She feels anger rising now, which she welcomes more than the unbearable sadness. “I could have gone with you!”

“I couldn’t have asked you to give up everything to follow me across the country.”

“You never even asked!” she yells. It hangs in the air, echoing.

“I know,” he agrees. “I know. I should have.”

She looks away.

He reaches over into her space and takes her hand. “I’m asking you now. I’m living in the dorms right now, but next semester—I mean, if you wanted to…”

She turns back to him. “Are you fucking with me?”

“I’m not. I miss you, Rey. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry. Words cannot express how sorry I am.”

It’s not enough to erase the past few months of loneliness, of sadness, of sleepless nights, of stalking his social media accounts to see if he’s dating anyone, of refusing to listen to any songs that remind her of him. But it’s a start.

“Keep saying things like that,” she says. “Keep saying it until the day I arrive in our new apartment in LA. And then maybe I’ll believe you.”

A smile breaks out across his face. She’s tempted to smile back, but there’s still a part of her holding back.

“Deal,” he agrees, leaning over to seal it with a kiss.


	4. Horror Movie 🍿

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I missed a few days of re-uploading. Things have been kind of crazy.
> 
>  **Angstober 4th prompt:** “How are you not terrified?”

Every day on the calendar hanging in the kitchen has a horror movie written on it.

 _The Shining. The Exorcist. IT. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Babadook. The Witch. A Nightmare on Elm Street._ And, of course, _Halloween_ on Halloween.

Rey smiles as she crosses off October 3rd ( _Rosemary's Baby_ ) with a red Sharpie. Tonight’s feature: _Midsommar_.

She’s been roommates with Ben Solo for the past eight months, ever since she’d answered his ad thumbtacked to the bulletin board in the cafeteria on campus, which had specifically requested someone clean, quiet, non-smoking, non-drug-taking, and who paid their rent on time. No couples or pets. No orgies or ritualistic cult ceremonies conducted in the living room. No Marmite. (She’s broken this rule several times.)

At first, he had turned her down based solely on the fact she’s an undergrad, as he’s a grad student and TA. He’d assumed she’d be the partying type who would take the rent due date as a suggestion. But his reputation as a very serious and sometimes volatile guy must’ve resulted in very few applicants, and thus she found herself moving in shortly after, with only three boxes and a sad, dying plant.

A meow sounds from under her, BeeBee weaving his orange tail around her legs to ask for dinner. Another rule she’s broken.

Ben might act like he’s against him in principle, but she’s caught them cuddling on the couch together more than once.

As the popcorn pops in the microwave and the kitchen fills up with the smells of extra movie theatre butter, Rey pours some Meow Mix into BeeBee’s bowl. Then she microwaves apple cider in her favorite mug—which happens to be Ben’s mug—and makes her way to the living room.

Ben is lounged on the couch, his long legs stretched out in front of him, lost in his phone. He doesn’t even look up when she puts the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table and plops down on the couch beside him, cradling her mug.

“I’ve bought you a mug for both Christmas and your birthday last year,” he says. “And yet you still steal mine.”

“It’s the perfect shape,” she says, admiring it. “Besides, it’s mine now.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you went to calligraphy camp.” She notices there’s a hint of a smile on his lips.

“I didn’t even know there were such things,” she says, looking at the faded script of _Calligraphy Camp 2001_. “You’re such a dork.”

“Says the woman who dressed up as Gandalf last Halloween.”

“Sorry, I’ll be sure to dress up as Arwen next time,” she drawls.

“Hey, I’m not knocking it,” he defends, holding up his hands, his phone glowing in the left. “I thought it was great. The beard was so sexy.”

Rey laughs. “That’s what all my boyfriends say during role-play.”

Ben grabs the remote from the coffee table. “Alright, so are we doing this?”

She nods, her mouth already stuffed with popcorn. He gets up and turns out the lights, because movies are meant to be watched in the dark. Another rule.

 _Midsommar_ plays.

Rey loves these movie nights with Ben. He’s been so busy lately that they rarely get time to hang out anymore, which makes her incredibly sad. He’s her best friend. He’s the man she’s secretly in love in. She worries about what’s going to happen in two months—if he’ll want her to re-sign the lease with him, or if he’ll want to live on his own. They haven't talked about it yet, and while things seem to be going smoothly with only the odd fight about crumbs in the butter or hair in the sink, there’s a part of her that believes she’ll be tossed out on the street with her three boxes, dead plant, and BeeBee.

She knows it’s because of her upbringing. She doesn’t need to refer to her textbook from freshman-year Intro to Psychology to understand that. She knows her fear of abandonment causes her to be either too clingy or too cold, and ruins whatever relationship she has before it even gets off the ground. But part of that’s also because they’re not Ben.

For forty minutes, they sit only inches away from each other, so close that she can feel his body heat. How she longs for him to reach over and hold her hand, or even just swing an arm over the top of the couch behind her.

But he doesn’t.

Tonight, he’s breaking his own rule of no phones during feature presentations. In her peripheral, she watches him text someone.

“Did you want to watch this later?” she asks, annoyed but hiding it.

“No, it’s fine.”

He puts his phone down in his lap, his eyes back on the TV screen even though Rey’s are on the screen of his phone. She can’t tell who it is, and she doesn’t ask.

After some more time has passed, she asks, “How are you not terrified right now?”

“I didn’t realize cult imagery upset you so much. Are you religious?” He narrows his eyes at this, and Rey gets the feeling he’s remembering his roommate stipulations.

“Oh, yes, I forgot to mention,” she says as seriously as she can, trying to keep her face as impassive as she can. “I’ve joined a new religion called The First Order. There are robes and everything. And apparently some sweet drink we’re all to drink together next meeting?”

Ben rolls his eyes, but she sees it—a smile.

“Actually, I meant, how are you not terrified at how much of an asshole Dani's boyfriend is?” she continues. “He's the true horror in this."

"Oh, I agree," he says. "I'd never treat my girlfriend like that."

"You would need a girlfriend first," she counters playfully, but the second it's out of her mouth, she realizes, wait... maybe he does have one. But he's home every night, and he never has anyone over. He's never mentioned anyone either, although he's intensely private, so that might not mean anything.

She waits for his response, but he doesn't say anything. 

Instead, his attention is back on his texts. She doesn't think he's gotten any new messages, so he seems to be re-reading them. Checking them for typos or over-analyzing. Whoever the grey text bubbles are, Rey hates them.

She practically shoves the popcorn bowl under his nose, blocking his view of his phone. "Want any?"

“Oh, uh… I’ve got some dinner plans,” he says.

“But it’s like, nine-thirty,” she points out.

“Yeah, Jess is running late.”

 _Jess_.

_Who the fuck is Jess?!_

Rey’s mind begins to race as her chest feels like it’s been stabbed. The only Jess she can think of is a guy in her stats class, but then she remembers: Jessika Pava. The pretty brunette who works in the campus Starbucks that openly flirts with Ben and ignores Rey every time they grab coffee together. She continuously gets Rey’s pumpkin spice order wrong, making it with 2% milk instead of soy. What if she had a dairy allergy?! She should sue.

But she doesn’t have a dairy allergy, so. Yeah.

Rey didn’t think he would ever date an undergrad. And especially not someone like Jessika. Is this to be their first date? Have they slept together yet?

Oh god… what if they sleep together tonight?

What if he brings her home and she has to hear them having sex through the thin wall separating their bedrooms?

But they have a rule about that—no overnight guests. Surely he wouldn’t break it now? But then she realizes so many other rules have been broken.

Rey wants to die. She wants to be killed off like one of the sexually promiscuous girls in slasher flicks.

Ben’s phone lights up again with a buzz.

“Oh, she’s outside.” He stands up, then seems to remember her. “Hey, uh… you don't mind, do you?”

“No, not at all,” she says, impressed with herself. Maybe she’s studying the wrong major. Maybe she should fill out a Change of Major form to theatre instead.

“We’ll continue this tomorrow night?”

He’s messing up the schedule. _His_ schedule.

“Actually, I’m busy,” she lies. “Plans with Poe. Sorry.”

She thinks she might see a flicker of something cross his face, but she can’t be sure.

“Okay. Well, uh… have a good night then.”

“You too.”

She listens to the door close behind him.

She turns off _Midsommar_ , picks up BeeBee, and goes into her room, headphones pulled over her head along with the covers, trying to ignore mental images of Ben and Jess burned into her eyelids as visceral as a movie playing on a screen.


	5. Something Blue 💍

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 5th prompt:** "Maybe it's too late."

St. Jude’s Episcopal Church is a 19th century Gothic Revival landmark in the heart of Center City, one of the wealthiest parts of Philadelphia. Rey’s not sure how much it costs to get married here, but she assumes a lot. Way more than she could afford, though that would require her to get engaged first. Or even have a boyfriend.

Not that she doesn’t have options. As far as she knows, her arrangement with Poe still stands, that if neither of them are married before the time they’re forty, they’ll hop on a plane to Vegas and get married by Elvis. Though things with Zorii have been looking serious lately, and while she’s happy for him, a selfish part of her wishes she had gotten their arrangement notarized.

She could always marry Finn. He’s been in love with her since they met sophomore year in college, but she could never do that to Rose.

Rey looks over at her in the driver’s seat as they sit in a standstill of traffic. Rose has replaced Kaydel as her best friend ever since Kaydel hooked up with Ben a year and a half ago, despite knowing how Rey felt. Despite knowing that she was working her way up to telling him. Over twelve years of friendship, obliterated. Had half of that heart-shaped best friends necklace meant nothing?

“I can’t believe they’re getting married today,” Rey mumbles while staring out the passenger-side window, before turning to Rose. “You know the church’s website said there’s a year-long waiting list?”

“Thinking of calling in your arrangement with Poe early?”

“Just think about it, Rose. Kaydel and Ben got together only a year and a half ago. And if there’s a year-long waiting list… then she must have put their names down only six months into their relationship.”

“Or maybe they moved them up the list because of who they are.” Rose shrugs. “You know Kaydel’s a high-profile designer. And Ben... well, you know Ben.”

She does. Or, rather, she used to.

“I don’t know. It’s suspicious is all. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Rose sighs. “Look, I know you want to believe the worst of her. That she’s trapped Ben into this or something. But I think you should try accepting that they’re together. Maybe even happily.”

Rey closes her eyes, not wanting to hear this again. Somewhere deep down, she knows Rose and all the rest of her friends are right; that she should let go, try and move on. Download Tinder or something. She knows this idea of hers is absolutely mad, but she’s in love and since when has love ever been rational?

“But what if there’s a chance, Rose?” she asks. “What if he wants to be with me too, but he thinks I don’t feel the same?”

“All I’m saying it… maybe it’s too late. Maybe you two would have gotten together if you had said something in the past, what, five years? …Or maybe not. But as of right now, he’s getting married in…”—Rose glances at the glowing time on the dashboard—“twelve minutes. I know these aren’t things you want to hear, but I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I didn’t say them.”

“I know,” Rey says. “I know you’re just looking out for me. But I need to try. Or else I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering.”

Rose nods. “You know I’ve got your back no matter what. Which is why I agreed to drive you last-minute to their wedding, even though this is crazy. I mean… you must agree this is crazy.”

“It is,” Rey agrees.

“And you’re wearing jeans and an X-Men tee.”

“It’s laundry day.” Rey laughs at herself, because if she doesn’t, she’ll cry.

A horn behind them honks. Rey stares at the time. Eleven minutes.

“We’re not going to make it,” she says, her hand already on the door handle. “I think I need run the next eight blocks.”

“Eight blocks? You’ll never make it!”

“We’ll never make it now. Not in this traffic.”

Rose shakes her head, sighing. She knows there’s no use in talking Rey out of it. “Okay, well, uh… good luck?”

Rey opens the door and steps into the street, then leans down into the car. “Thanks for driving me.”

“Hey, what are best friends for, if not driving them to break up a wedding?”

*

It’s a brisk but sunny October day. It strikes Rey as being a strange month for a wedding, figuring that Kaydel would be the traditional spring or summer bride. Poe has theorized more than once that Kaydel is knocked up and that this is a shotgun wedding. Rey doesn’t want to think about that. If it’s true… then he’ll never leave her. He’s not that kind of guy.

Despite the chilliness and the fact she’s only wearing a tee shirt, running eight blocks makes her sweat. She knocks into at least three people, one guy cursing her out. She narrowly avoids getting hit by a Range Rover.

By the time she reaches the church, she’s out of breath, sweat making strands of her hair stick to her face and neck, her face likely as red as the double-doors under the gray stone arch. She pulls her shirt away from her body to fan herself, praying there aren't any armpit stains, that she doesn’t smell.

She takes a deep breath in. Exhales.

It’s now or never.

She ascends the stone steps and opens the right-side door. As her Vans slowly and quietly make across the red carpet of the vestibule, she hears the reverend’s reading about the importance of marriage—of the union of two hearts and souls and may they always be open to one another.

She walks a few feet into the church and turns to the right, stopping in the middle of the narthex, behind all the pews in the nave.

Every pew is filled. There’s camera flashes and a cameraman filming up front. And in the center of it all, Ben and Kaydel holding hands, gazing at each other.

Rey’s all the way in the back of the church, but even from a distance, she can see a soft smile upon his lips.

They look like they’re in love.

“Do you, Benjamin Chewbacca Solo, take Kaydel Katherine Connix to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do you part?”

Rey holds her breath.

Ben’s smile grows wider. “I do.”

Rey never waits to hear Kaydel’s vows. It’s already over. It’s done.

Ben Solo is lost to her forever.

When she pushes open the door into the bright loudness of the city, she fills her lungs with a huge gulp of polluted air. There’s the smell of charred meat from a steakhouse across the street and faint perfume from someone passing by.

It hits her then, as she stares at the maroon-painted wooden sign sticking out of the small patch of grass next to the sidewalk. The church is named after St. Jude—patron saint of lost causes. How appropriate.

Rey finds her body moving on autopilot. Soon her feet are pounding the pavement, block after block, and she can’t see anything other than a blur of lights and shapes through her tears.

She doesn’t know where she’s going, but she needs to get away from here, as far away as possible, it doesn’t matter where.

She finds herself at Rose’s apartment three hours later, collapsing on her living room floor with fatigue and heartbreak.

She thinks she might be dying.

Rose gives her glass after glass of water, then runs a bath for her with candles and one of her Lush bath bombs. Lavender—to soothe, to sleep.

Rey lies in the tub until the water is cold and Rose threatens to call the fire department to knock down the door if she doesn’t come out.

After Rey’s dressed in sweatpants and a tee borrowed from Rose’s dresser, she lies on the couch under a throw with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of chamomile tea that Rose makes her. She doesn’t even like chamomile, being more of an English Breakfast or Earl Grey type, but she sips it anyway.

They watch period piece after period piece until dawn breaks and Rey finally passes out, dreaming of someone else still out there.

But he looks just like Ben.


	6. The Craft 🔮

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 6th prompt:** "Why are you leaving?" 
> 
> The Craft AU I'm eventually planning on expanding into a proper fic. Not terribly angsty but Halloween-ish.

It’s a full moon.

Spells conducted now will have the highest chance of success. It’s the perfect time for prophesy, protection, divination, and any working that needs extra power.

Waves crash upon an isolated stretch of Leo Carrillo State Beach, the sand glowing pale and cool in the moonlight. It’s not only the perfect place for a ritual, but the perfect time—late October, when Southern California dips into the 50s at night. The sea makes it even colder.

Rey Niima wraps herself further in her oversized burnt orange sweater, tasting a hint of salt on her tongue from the Pacific. She’s standing in the middle of the circle she’d cast with her switchblade, because she can’t afford a ceremonial athame, eyeing them every time she goes into Maz’s metaphysical shop. Besides, the switchblade doubles as protection, which she needs in South Central Los Angeles.

The circle is protection as well, but from anything she summons or draws to her, purposefully or not. It’s outlined visually with small stones, shells, and driftwood she found on the beach.

She uses her iPhone’s built-in compass to determine the directions, because she’s a witch living in 2019 and not 17th century Salem. Then she stretches her arms out overhead to call the corners for further protection and power.

She faces a cracked ceramic bowl of Morton’s sea salt (how she wishes she could afford the pretty pink Himalayan kind at Whole Foods) to represent the element Earth. She imagines her body being pulled down to the sand, grounding herself deep in her gut. “Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtower of the North,” she summons. “Powers of work, practicality, and responsibility. Hear me!”

She turns clockwise, facing a long white feather she found to represent Air, which is weighed down with a stone to keep the gusts from blowing it away. She focuses on the wind whipping across her face, blowing strands of her hair everywhere. “Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the East—powers of invention, intellect, and communication. Hear me!”

She turns again, facing the small bonfire crackling with embers rising and fading into the indigo night. She feels the heat, letting it warm her. “Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the South—powers of passion, inspiration, and creativity. Hear me!”

She turns one last time, facing an antique hand mirror she’d bought for cheap at a garage sale, ornate and silver with spider webs of oxidation. She catches a glimpse of the moonlight in it, imagining herself sinking through the glass like liquid mercury. She can hear the tide rolling in even stronger than before. “Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtower of the West—powers of emotion, empathy, and secrets. Hear me!”

Rey has many secrets. Deep, aching ones, like the orphan past she keeps hidden from her friends at St. Benedict’s. Or how Plutt, her foster father, starves and beats her, using the checks from the state on cheap tequila, cartons of Camels, and prostitutes while she’s forced to work in his hardware shop for free, like right out of a Dickens novel.

It’s why she’s here.

She sits down cross-legged in the middle of the circle, the sand cool underneath her worn jeans. In her right hand is a drugstore-developed photo she found of him in a dusty album. In her left, a roll of white electrical tape she’d stolen from the shop.

She pulls out a long strip of it and rips it off, then begins wrapping it slowly around the picture, starting at the bottom. She wants to feel like she’s drowning him in it.

“I bind you, Unkar Plutt, from doing harm—harm against other people and harm against yourself.”

She continues to wrap up his varicosed legs, over his bulging belly underneath a sports jersey.

“I bind you, Unkar Plutt, from doing harm—harm against other people and harm against yourself.”

It wraps around his neck. She hopes, wherever he it, it’s choking him.

“I bind you, Unkar Plutt, from doing harm—harm against other people and harm against yourself.”

The photo is nearly completely covered now, just a sliver of the edge remaining.

“I bind you, Unkar Plutt, from—”

“That’s not a very good spell, you know,” a deep, dulcet voice chides from somewhere behind her.

Rey’s heart stutters as she whips around, to find herself staring straight at Ben Solo.

Is this real? Or is he some manifestation to fuck with her by something dark who knows her deepest secrets?

He’s sitting a few feet away from her, outside the circle, his knees pulled up as he brings a joint up to those sinful lips. The faint smell of earthy, flowery weed drifts over to her. And not the cheap, skunky shit.

 _Of course_ rich kid Ben Solo would be smoking the good stuff.

“What are you doing here?” she demands, regaining some measure of control.

He flicks ash onto the sand. “I come here sometimes to think.”

“And what do you have to think about?” she scoffs. “Which ivy league college to go to next year? How best to waste mommy and daddy’s money?”

Something flickers across his face. Hurt, maybe. But that’s impossible. It must be a trick of the moonlight.

“You don’t know me,” he says coldly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It’s true, she doesn’t. Even though she’s passed him every day in the hallways of St. Benedict’s for three years. She’s watched him go from a lanky, awkward boy to a _man_ , muscles stretched underneath the school uniform of crisp white Oxford shirts. She’s watched him grow out his terrible bowl cut that accentuated his big ears, his black hair now long and wavy, wisps brushing his shoulders. She’s watched other girls get to run their hands through it.

“And you don’t know me,” she retorts before turning back around, determined to ignore him. She just hopes he’ll go away soon and never tell anyone at school what he’s seen. She’s perfectly content being invisible. But if this gets out… the nuns will be the least of her problems. She can already hear the whispers of _devil worshipper, probably sacrifices animals_ , and her all-time favorite, _always knew she was a freak._

“But I do,” she hears him mumble. It vibrates through her back, into her bones. “I do.”

Rey laughs. “Right.”

“Why, you’re Rey Niima,” he proclaims with an airy sarcasm. “Seventeen years old, self-described Gryffindor going off the beanie I’ve seen you wear since freshman year… though I think you’re really more of a Slytherin than you’ll probably ever admit. You have paintings hanging up in Ms. Erso’s art room. You takes the bus to school, and not even the school bus, but the Metro. You work at your dad’s hardware store every day after school, which makes me wonder why you haven’t bought a car by now, you—”

“He’s not my dad,” she corrects him with perhaps a little more vitriol than necessary.

Ben raises an eyebrow. “Then who is he?”

Rey bites her lip, wondering if she should say. If he’s someone she could trust. A gut feeling tells her he might be. “My foster father,” she admits, holding up the wrapped photo.

Ben seems to consider her, his dark eyes flicking down over her body. But to her dismay, it doesn’t seem like he’s checking her out. And why would he? He could have anyone he wants. She knows he’s dated both Kaydel and Bazine, two of the most popular girls in school who are also, predictably, cheerleaders. There’s no way he’d ever be into an A-cup with mousy brown hair and holes in her second-hand uniform, her regular clothes also from Goodwill.

“Well, like I said… that’s not a very good spell.”

“And what would _you_ know about it?”

“I know that binding someone also binds them to you. You’re better off doing a banishing spell. Or better yet—something stronger. More powerful.”

Rey’s jaw drops. “Like what?”

Ben shrugs casually, but she suspects he’s anything but. “The Knots of Discord, for one. Poppets. Or if you _really_ want to make him suffer, then I’d suggest taking the plunge into the _Lesser Keys of Solomon_.”

“Isn’t that stuff kinda... dark?”

“But it works. I could teach you.”

Rey’s stomach somersaults with the all the things she imagines he could teach her. Things that have nothing to do with spells and hexes. “I just can’t believe _Benjamin Solo_ is into black magick.”

He shrugs again. “It’s just something I’ve stumbled across.”

“How does one just ‘stumble across’ demonology grimoires from the Renaissance?”

“There’s this thing called the internet.” He rolls his eyes.

“And here I assumed pretty boys like yourself just used it for porn.”

Ben quirks an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth twitching up. “So you think I’m pretty?”

“Figure of speech,” she says, feeling heat rise to her skin.

Ben grins.

Fuck.

“So have you ever heard of sex magick?” he asks in an innocent tone.

If Rey were drinking anything at this moment, she would have choked. “No.”

“Would you ever try it?”

Her brain is short-circuiting. “I… guess?” She almost doesn’t want to ask, but she can’t help wondering: “…Have you? You know… done it before? Sex magick, I mean. Not--I mean, obviously you’ve had sex before…” _Shut up shut up_ , she tells herself.

“No,” he admits, looking amused. “But I’d be interested. With the right person.” He pauses, his eyes dark, intense, unblinking. “The right witch.”

Rey’s heart is thumping erratically in her rib cage, but she tries her best to appear unshaken. As if it’s perfectly normal to have a hypothetical conversation about having sex with someone she had never had a conversation with before, who also happens to be one of the most popular guys in school. As if she isn’t a virgin.

Not for the first time, she wonders what it would be like. She’s thought about him more times than she could count whenever she’s gotten off late at night, but something tells her her fantasies aren’t anywhere close to the intense reality.

She realizes they’ve been staring at each other, their gazes locked. Is he waiting for her to make a move? Or is this just some joke he’s playing?

A buzzing sound interrupts whatever spell they’ve put themselves under.

Ben pulls his iPhone out of his hoodie pocket, but silences it and puts it back. It reminds Rey that she needs to check the time, but without a cell phone of her own to act as a modern-day pocket-watch, she glances at her wristwatch.

Fuck.

She stands up, then quickly begins throwing her magickal tools into her backpack. She kicks sand over the dwindling fire.

“Why are you leaving?” Ben wonders, and if she didn’t know any better, she would think there was disappointment in his voice.

“I’ve got to catch the bus home,” she says. “Last one leaves in ten minutes and if I’m not on it, I’m fucked.”

“I can give you a ride home,” he says, standing up now too.

Rey considers it. On one hand, she _really_ doesn’t want him to see where she lives. On the other… the bus takes two hours with all of its stops and detours, and there’s always weird smells and at least one crazy person. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” he says, the grin back. “It’ll give us time to get to know each other more. And I’m really, _really_ looking forward to that.”


	7. Severed Strings 🕷

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is my most controversial one-shot. It was loosely based off of _Marriage Story_ —or rather the trailer, as the film hadn't been released yet when this was written. **Warning:** It deals with Ben being unfaithful to Rey once, when he was going through a rough time. It has a happy ending though. But if you think you might dislike this even 1%, **do not read.** I think some people will hate-read it just as an excuse to hate-comment. But don't bother, as all nasty comments will be deleted without response.
> 
>  **Angstober 7th prompt:** “Give me another chance.”

Their divorce is finalized on Halloween.

Which sucks, because it’s Rey’s favorite holiday. And now it’s ruined, associated more with the end of her marriage to the love of her life than scary movies and fun-sized candy.

At least Hannah will still get to enjoy it. This year, their six-year-old has chosen to go as Coraline. All week she’s been wearing the bobbed blue wig around the house, and has been wearing the bright yellow raincoat and wellies to school despite there being no rain or puddles to hop in.

Even though trick-or-treating starts in an hour for their neighborhood, Rey’s still stitching stars to Hannah’s navy blue jumper for her costume, cursing herself every time she pricks herself with the needle. Against stereotypical convention, Ben was always the one to sew buttons and tears, Rey never having learned. Which is probably odd considering she grew up poor with most of her clothes from charity shops, but she never had anyone to teach her. Meanwhile, her husband— _ex-husband,_ she corrects herself for the millionth time—learned from his mother, who Rey refuses to give up the way she had to with the dog and half of the Blu-ray collection.

Her phone buzzes on the coffee table.

 **Finn:** _Hey peanut, how are you doing?_

Rey thinks about what to say. Surprisingly, she’s holding it together despite everything, which might not be so surprising after all. Hadn’t she done the same with her parents, burying all of her feelings so deep that she felt dead, numb to the world? It was Ben who had brought her back, his hands and lips warming her skin, electric shocks galvanizing her like Frankenstein’s monster, making her feel more alive than she’d ever felt.

She knows she’ll never have that again. Their love was like a rare meteor; a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And he ruined it. Eight years together, thrown away for some random fuck in the backseat of their Volvo.

She’d let him keep the car in the settlement.

Rey can feel it—the numbness creeping back in, slowly cutting off circulation to her heart. But she can’t let herself die again. She has Hannah to take care of now.

 **Rey:** _I’m fine, how are you? How’s Poe?_

 **Finn:** _Good!_

**Finn:** _We’re at the Cantina for happy hour if you want to come hang?_

**Finn:** _We’ll buy your drinks! Their specials tonight are Sex in a Graveyard and Poisoned Appletinis._

 **Rey:** _Tempting_

 **Rey:** _But trick-or-treating starts at 6_

 **Finn:** _awww send me a pic of my godchild. I want to see the costume!_

Rey smiles as she chooses one of the photos she took the other day before Hannah went to school.

 **Finn:** 😍

**Finn:** _Don’t you wish we could trick or treat as adults? I could use free candy._

**Rey:** _You're drinking candy right now._

 **Rey:** _That Poe probably bought you._

 **Rey:** 😂

 **Finn:** _okay true_

Rey goes back to her sewing, _Hocus Pocus_ playing in the background. Hannah’s sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of the TV, and every time Binx comes on the screen, she begs to adopt a black cat. Especially now that Ben took Chewie.

The doorbell rings just as Rey stabs herself with the needle again, a pinprick of blood blooming on her fingertip.

“What are you doing here?” she demands when she opens the door, her arms crossed and walls built high.

Ben just stands there on her front porch like he doesn’t know what to do. Like he’s lost, despite this having been the home he’d shared with her for seven years. He still gets mail delivered here, despite having moved back in with his parents months ago.

“I wanted to go trick-or-treating with you and Hannah,” he says. “If that’s okay?”

Rey shakes her head. “I know we talked about wanting to make things as normal for her as possible, but that doesn’t include being around each other outside karate class, her birthday, or major holidays.”

“But it _is_ a major holiday,” he says, attempting a smile though it doesn’t reach his eyes, which look sad. He has no right to look this sad. “I know how much you both worship Halloween. She gets it from you.”

Rey’s tempted to slam the door in his face, but she restrains herself. “Look, I’ve got to finish sewing her costume, so I’m sorry but—”

“Do you need help?” He sounds hopeful.

“No. I’m more than capable of doing it myself.”

“I know you are,” he says. “You’re the most capable person I know. The strongest person I know.”

She sighs. “Sucking up will get you nowhere.”

“I’m not. It’s just the truth.”

“Like you’re even capable of truth,” she scoffs, then bites her lip. She knows she needs to reel it back. She remembers Leia always said that bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. And it’s already done. What happened, happened, and now there’s nothing left to do but move forward and try to be civil to one another, for their daughter’s sake. And besides, she never wants Hannah to overhear anything nasty said to each other.

Ben looks chastised. A 6’2 kicked puppy.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

“Well it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough, so you might as well stop saying it.”

“I’ll never stop saying it, Rey.”

“Daddy!” Hannah yells excitedly, a blue and yellow blur running past Rey, jumping into her father’s arm.

“Hey sweetheart,” he says, smiling wide down at her. Rey feels like she’s being stabbed in the heart. She misses those smiles.

“Are you coming trick-or-treating with us?”

Ben glances at Rey, then looks back at Hannah. “Not this year. …I’ve got work to do.”

“But you’re always working!” she pouts.

He looks at Rey again, knowing exactly what she’s thinking—all the twelve-hour days he slaved away for Snoke. Coming home late, sometimes not even coming home at all.

Fucking his assistant in the parking lot of the firm.

He claimed it was just that one time. He’d just won a big case, and while that’s kind of the whole point of being a criminal defense attorney, it resulted in the freedom of one of the worst people on the planet—a white supremacist who raped and murdered both his girlfriend and her daughter.

Ben had always dealt with issues in three self-destructive ways: by drinking, getting into a fight, or having meaningless sex. It was how they hooked up, actually—they’d had a no-strings-attached relationship for a while before realizing that they were both madly in love with each other, and that strings maybe weren’t so bad. They kept you grounded. They gave your life meaning.

With one mistake, he had severed those strings. And then one by one, he had to watch his house, his wife, his daughter, and every mundane, beautiful thing that made them a family float away.

“ _Please please please_ Daddy,” Hannah begs.

“Daddy can come,” Rey relents, ignoring the way his grateful smile warms her inside, not wanting her anger to defrost. Because then she’ll feel the unbearable weight of loss, and she can’t fall apart, she just _can’t_.

She knows from experience it takes ten times as long to put yourself together again.

*

Hannah’s passed out on the carpet, surrounded by candy.

There’s a few toys, pencils, pennies, and even apples, which Rey didn’t even think anyone gave out anymore after the razorblade rumors of the ‘80s.

They’d hit up all the best houses. Shriveled leaves and smashed pumpkin pulp lined the sidewalks as they walked block after block, past inflatable ghosts, plastic tombstones, and jack o’lanterns glowing in the pale blue dusk.

It had been nice. Almost like old times.

 _Almost_.

They’d maintained a distance of at least two feet, as if this too was mandated in the divorce settlement. But right now, exhausted in more ways than one, Rey lets herself forget. She sits down a few inches away from him on the couch with two glasses of apple cider in plastic kid’s cups. She hands him one.

“I’m going to therapy,” he says. Just like that, out of nowhere.

Rey busies herself with the remote, flipping through the channels with the volume low, past slasher flicks and ghost investigation shows. “Okay?”

“I know you always wanted me to go. So I just wanted you to know… I’m going.”

“Don’t go for me,” she says. “Go for yourself. For Hannah.”

“I am.”

“Good.”

Rey stops on _The Addams Family_. Oh, how she wishes she could have a love like Gomez and Morticia. Her and Ben had had that. How she wishes she could have it again.

She’d gone on exactly one date since her marriage ended, and while he was attractive and nice, the spark wasn’t there. Still, she slept with him. Partly as a way to force feelings, partly as revenge for Ben’s infidelity, and partly because she was just lonely.

“I miss you, Rey. I miss Hannah. I miss _this_. Just hanging out together as a family, watching movies in the living room. And I’m so”—his voice cracks—“ _so_ sorry. Please, just give me another chance. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything for you.”

Rey closes her eyes, sighing deeply. “That’s not true. I asked you to leave Snoke’s firm so many times I’ve lost count.”

“I did.”

She turns to him. “What?”

“I left months ago. I’ve been working with Luke, at his legal aid.”

“Why haven’t you told me?”

Ben shrugs, looking down. “I didn’t want you to think I did it to try and get you back or anything. I… I didn’t like myself anymore. I lost not only who I was—who my parents had raised me to be—but I lost everything that mattered, too. And I know that doesn’t magically fix everything, but…” He sighs. “God, I love you so much Rey. I love you.”

There’s a sharp sting behind Rey’s eyes like a string being plucked. Her vision goes blurry with unshed tears. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“We can take it slow,” he says, taking her hands in his. “I can sleep in the spare bedroom, or on the couch.” Rey opens her mouth, but he begins rushing his words to beat her to it. “Or I can continue to stay with my parents. I can take you out on a date every week—any night you want, you choose.”

“I don’t know…”

“Or we can married again. I’d marry you tomorrow, if I could.”

Rey smiles. It’s not as wide and free as the smiles she used to give him, but it’s the first one in a long time. But then she remembers.

“I sold the engagement ring,” she admits. “I was angry, to say the least. So angry that I didn’t even remember it was your grandmother’s, not until it was too late. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” he says. Then: “That’s okay.”

“It’s not okay! If Leia ever finds out…”

“It wasn’t the ring itself that Leia cares about,” Ben says. “It’s you, it’s me, it’s Hannah. It’s family. It’s love. The ring is just a symbol—a hunk of metal and stone. I’m sure Anakin and Padmé would have agreed.”

Rey nods. “Well, still… I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” he says. “For everything.”

She studies his face as he gazes down at Hannah, still peacefully asleep on the floor. Rey’s thankful she’ll never know what it’s liked to be unloved.

Something seems to catch Ben’s eye. She watches him get off the ouch and grab something amidst the massive piles of colorful candy.

“If that’s a Snickers, I’ll take it,” she says. “If it’s 3 Muskateers… throw it in the bin.”

Ben just looks at whatever’s in his hand, then bends down on one knee in front of her, holding a plastic spider ring.


	8. The Blue-Black Darkness 🌒

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some canonverse Force Bond bed!sharing, popular circa 2018.
> 
>  **Angstober 8th prompt:** “I love you.”

They’re lying together in their bed—which is to say _his_ bed on the Ascendancy, and her tiny cot in the bowls of the Resistance base on Yavin IV. The springs of the well-worn mattress are digging into her back, but she’s covered by silk sheets that glide across her skin. Faintly, she can see stars glimmering when she turns her head to the left, but they fade into the thick slabs of stone.

“The bond’s growing stronger,” she observes quietly, always aware of others. The walls are too thick for anyone to overhear, but she could never be too careful. The moment they forget is the moment they get caught. The moment all this will end.

“It is,” he agrees.

She closes her eyes and counts his breaths. His bare chest rises and falls slowly, evenly, as if he’s one push away from falling asleep.

“You can sleep,” she insists. “I know how rarely you get the chance to.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because when I open my eyes again, you’ll be gone.”

She understands. She, too, is resisting it, even as her muscles ache and the marrow-deep weariness tries to drag her down into a dark, dreamless sleep, the closest thing next to death. She imagines she’ll get to experience the real thing soon. They both will. Even if neither could kill the other, all it takes is being unlucky once. The wrong place, the wrong time, and something as simple as a blaster bolt could take the most powerful Force user out.

Every Force connection could be their last.

She doesn’t want to die—she wants to be with him, sheltered away in their own world, pretending that the war isn’t raging on around them, slowing burning it’s way in.

“Did you order the strike on Batuu?” She has to know.

He’s silent for a few long moments, enough to make her think he’s fallen asleep. But then she feels the rumbling in his chest as he says, “I thought we agreed not to talk about those things.”

“I know. I just… Finn is hurt. He’s in a bacta tank in the med bay, he’s—”

“I don't want to talk about the traitor,” he interrupts coldly. “I don’t want to hear about another man.”

She bristles. “He’s my best friend. He’s a good man. He’s about to have a baby—”

“I hope not with you.”

She sits up suddenly, clutching his silk sheet and her threadbare quilt around her naked body. She turns her head to look back down at him, at the wide expanse of his bare chest mottled with scars—some old and white, some fresh and angry. His black waves are mussed and his eyes are soft, but there’s still a hardness in his countenance. He still doesn’t trust her, after all this time.

“Of course not,” she says. “I can’t believe you would even consider that.”

“We only have these fleeting moments together. How am I to know what happens the rest of the time? How am I to know this isn’t a trick?”

“You think this is a trick?”

“I wouldn’t put it past your band of traitors and thieves. Perhaps you told them about the bond. Perhaps they’ve encouraged you.” He looks away, at some point in the distance she can’t see.

She feels something like a lightsaber stab in her chest, but she doesn’t know if it’s coming from him or herself. It doesn’t matter—they feel the same things. “You really believe that?”

He doesn’t answer.

She lowers herself down again, conforming her body to his, welcoming the heat. “You’re an idiot, Ben Solo.”

“Perhaps I am,” he agrees. “To let myself get so close to someone who could destroy me.”

“I’d never do that. You know that.”

“But you already have,” he says, turning to her.

She doesn’t know what to say, so she presses her lips gently to his, hoping that would say something he needs to hear.

But she can barely feel it. The bed is growing colder, the silk fading into rough, starched linen. Already the bond is fading. It’s too soon. Even if they had eternity, it would never be enough.

“I love you,” she finally admits as the tie between them slips and comes undone and she’s left alone in the blue-black darkness, but she can’t be certain he heard it.


	9. Where There's Smoke... 🔥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Ben pining for once. (There will be more Ben!pining ones. I just like writing from Rey’s POV more.)
> 
>  **Angstober 9th prompt:** “Do you still love him/her/them?”

As the elevator doors slide open, Ben notices there’s faint clouds of smoke drifting in the air.

At first, he thinks it’s those stupid kids from across the hall smoking their mom’s Pall Malls again, but it doesn’t smell like cigarettes. It doesn’t smell like weed. It smells like… something burning. But none of these apartments have a fireplace, even if they are on the top floor.

Gripping his bag of groceries, he rushes down the hall to his apartment. He doesn’t even have to fish for his keys, as the door is wide open, his roommate coughing into her emerald green sweater pulled around her mouth as she sprays air freshener, scenting with smoke with the fresh smell of Febreze Harvest Pumpkin.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Rey startles. “I sort of maybe did something stupid,” she says through her sweater.

“Sort of maybe?” he echoes.

“So… _funny story_ … I mean, you’re really going to laugh when you hear this… Kaydel suggested as part of the break-up process that I burn all of Poe’s things.”

Ben raises an eyebrow.

“At first I thought she meant, like, _burn down his apartment_ … but surprisingly no, she just meant the stuff that I have. Stuff he gave me or left over.”

Ben looks down at the mess in the middle of the living room, bright blue plastic melted onto the restored eighty-year-old hardwood floor. “And you thought that the bathroom garbage would be the proper receptacle for this… break-up bonfire? The _very plastic_ bathroom garbage?”

Rey winces. “I know, I know. The fire brigade already gave me a lecture.”

Ben drops the bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter, then sighs with his eyes closed, rubbing the top of his nose. “Rey… I know you’ve been going through a hard time, but please, don’t burn anything else. Go to therapy. Adopt a cat. Take up a hobby.”

“But what if burning things is my new hobby?” she asks innocently. “What if I’ve got a taste for it now? This break-up could be my supervillain origin story.”

Ben rolls his eyes, fighting against a smile. This shouldn't be funny.

“I _am_ sorry,” she insists. “I know this apartment is more yours than mine. You don’t need me burning it down.” There’s a pause before she adds, “You don’t even need me living here.”

It’s true, he doesn’t. He never did. He makes more than enough to afford rent on his own, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need _her_.

Not that she knows that.

“It’s okay,” he says, grabbing the broom from the cleaning supply cabinet. As he sweeps a half-charred photo of Rey and Poe into the dustpan, he’s reminded why he never said anything.

For as long as Ben has known her, she's been _Poe’s girlfriend_ , never just Rey. But despite them being a couple for over three years, they never took the next step into living together. Which always struck Ben as strange, because why wouldn’t Poe want to be with Rey all time time? She’s smart, funny, beautiful inside and out…

But Poe has never been the commitment type. Never the jealous type either, going off of how cool he was about Rey moving in with Ben when her last landlord was being a piece of shit. Ben can still see the disappointment in her eyes when Poe hadn’t offered that she move in with _him_.

He’s had to hear Rey rant about it many times over. Has had to suffer through her crying spells whenever Poe hurt her or disappointed her yet again. It was only a matter a time before that relationship hit a dead end.

And Ben’s been waiting for it. He’s never been the patient type, which his parents and elementary-school progress reports could more than attest to. And indeed, sometimes late at night, it takes every atom in him not to knock on her door and tell her _everything_.

But he’s waiting for his moment.

Maybe tonight is it. Maybe the failed bonfire means she’s _finally_ ready, the smoke clearing away any remaining feelings of Poe like cleansing incense.

“Did you want to go out to eat?” he asks casually as he sweeps, already mentally going through restaurants, trying to think of one that has a perfect “ _I’ve been in love with you since the moment I first met you in that shitty karaoke bar and even though only dogs could hear your singing, you’re amazing to me in every way_ ” ambiance. Something French maybe, or Italian…

“Unless you wanted me to further burn down the place by attempting to cook, yes.”

Ben smiles as he dumps the photo and ash into the trash bin.

*

The Italian bistro is perfect. Not too formal where Rey would feel out of place, but just enough where it’s clear that this is the kind of place couples go.

The lights are dim with small candles flickering on the tables. Ben knows candlelight is flattering to everyone, making them look softer and more attractive. He just hopes it does something for his nose.

“You look beautiful,” he tells Rey, who’s lost in her menu.

She look down at her sweater and jeans. “Oh, thanks! I feel underdressed though…”

“You could wear a paper bag and still be the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Rey’s face is frozen in surprise. Ben winces internally. _Reel it back, reel it back._

“Thank you,” she says. “That’s… wow. No one has ever said that to me. Not even Poe.” Her face falls. She doesn’t even look at the menu anymore, and when Rey no longer cares about food, he knows something is very wrong.

“Do you still love him?” he blurts out, needing to know.

Rey snaps her eyes to his, but then she looks down again, lost in thought, chewing on her bottom lip. “Yes,” she finally says. “I know it’s been a few weeks now, and maybe it’s been over for long before that… but yeah. I love him. I think I always will.”

Ben feels a crushing pain in his chest, like his heart is being squeezed. Is this a heart attack? At only 32?

He tries his best to ignore it, picking up the menu again, pretending to read but not seeing anything on it.

“You deserve better,” he says, unable to look at her. “I hope you find that someday.”

“I hope you do, too,” he hears her say. “Oh! They have brick oven pizza! Did you want to split a Hawaiian?"

And even though he absolutely _detests_ both ham and pineapple, he agrees.


	10. Enemy 🧟

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 10th prompt:** “Don’t leave me.”

It had happened so quickly.

There were reports of what they were calling a new strain of flu in New Mexico. It soon spread to the entire Southwest. And then the West Coast and Midwest. By the time it reached Rey Johnson in Massachusetts, she knew it was only a matter of time before it spread across the entirety of North and South America, and then the entire world.

The first symptoms are lethargy, which is all too easy to miss, as pretty much every adult suffers from this. And then comes the forgetfulness, which only increases as time goes on. First you’ll forget where you left your keys, and then the next day, who your kids are. Eventually you’ll forget yourself, a stranger in the mirror staring back at you.

Food loses its taste. All the salt and spices in the world won’t make it palatable to you. Even the most militant vegan won’t be able to resist the craving of raw, bloody meat. But what’s sold packaged in supermarkets won’t be enough for you—you’ll need it fresher, warmer. Bloodier.

The first case of cannibalism happened seven months ago.

A wealthy college kid from Beverly Hills stabbed a homeless man to death, then tore him apart with his bare hands. When the police shone their flashlights on him, he was covered in blood, chewing on a fleshy strip of the man’s face.

The media blamed bath salts. Conservatives blamed Democrats. The religious blamed a lack of God, standing on street corners with signs of Revelations scriptures, screaming about the end times.

Then doctors were able to diagnose what it was, based on biopsies of the brains of the infected. It was in fact not a virus but a prion disease, similar to Mad Cow or dementia, proteins in the brain unfolding themselves. There is no cure.

There is no hope.

Supermarkets sold out of hand sanitizer. New Age companies marketed herbal supplements as a treatment. Some people took to more archaic means, drinking mercury or attaching leeches upon their chests. Churches filled their pews, their collection plates never having held more money, though what good was money anymore?

The only thing that can actually help is a gun. To kill _them_. To kill yourself.

Society shut down. Slowly, and then all at once. Electrical grids shorted out as planks of wood were nailed across windows. The infected began to outnumber the living, shuffling the streets, searching for food as the living made raids to abandoned markets, swatting away the flies swarmed around rotting fruit.

The wealthiest bought stockpiles of military-grade, freeze-dried food, then holed up with their families in bomb shelters. Survivors are just as much of a threat to them as the infected.

Rey’s determined to find one of these shelters.

Right before her foster mother Maz had her intestines ripped out, she’d scrawled a location on the back of a receipt. A place called Naboo—a supposedly fortified city untouched by the horrors of the infection.

She’s never heard of this place before. To be honest, it sounds an awful lot like a fairy tale told to children to keep them moving. And Rey’s not a child. Not anymore.

She’s seventeen years old, but she’ll never graduate high school. She’ll never go to prom. She’ll never get married and have a family. She’ll never even get to have her first kiss.

She’s always been tough, having grown up in group and foster homes since she was five. It took a while for her edges to soften once she moved in with Maz, but they’re sharp again now. She carries a crossbow on her back, a Makarov pistol in her holster, and a knife concealed in her left boot.

She's not one to be fucked with.

She traveled alone, a lone wolf all her life, until she saved her best friend Rose from an attack. And then Rose insisted that her older sister Paige join them on their pilgrimage to Naboo, even though Rey thought she was too weak. She couldn’t even fire a gun when an infected was coming right at her.

And then Rose was killed.

Now Rey’s stuck with Paige, who follows after her like a lost, pathetic puppy, completely helpless. Part of her wishes she’d just get killed already, but then she feels badly, knowing how much Rose loved her. So she takes care of Paige. For Rose.

From dawn to dusk, they walk from town to town, city to city, down desolate streets, past boarded-up houses and shops, searching for food and bullets. With the internet down, every gas station convenience store and car glove compartment is broken into for faded yellow maps that could point them in the direction of Naboo. But they have yet to find it.

It’s a cold day when this routine changes.

The leaves have begun to change around the time Rey has begun to see her breath at night, and she realizes that it might be October. Maybe November, with global warming.

Their clothes have begun to break down, holes ripping in their cotton shirts and jeans, which reek of sweat. Paige insists they break into a mall, and despite every alarm bell going off in Rey’s head that this is a very bad idea, she agrees.

After all, a mall only has so many exits. If the infected were to swarm them, they’d be trapped.

The parking lot of Corellia Mall only has a few cars, which likely means there are few if any survivors inside. Which is good, because the last thing Rey needs is to have her weapons or boots stolen. As Paige throws a brick through one of the glass doors to Macy’s, Rey tenses with her hand on her gun, waiting for an alarm or sudden onslaught.

But everything is quiet. Too quiet.

Rey grabs the first things that look to be in her size—a black tee shirt, a charcoal gray sweater, black jeans. She rips open plastic packs of underwear and socks, then stuffs the rest in a new backpack. It’s a maroon JanSport with a tan suede bottom, which makes her feel as if she’s off to a brand new school year.

Paige, meanwhile, takes her time shopping, which annoys the fuck out of Rey, because who is she trying to impress?

After Paige picks out a flowery dress, cable knit tights, and a cardigan, they make their way into the belly of the mall. The only light comes from the glass dome roof.

They find a gym. Which has showers, thank God.

Paige takes the first watch outside the gym as Rey quickly strips and then steps under the water hissing out of the old metal shower head. It’s not hot, not even close, but it feels divine. As the caked blood and grime swirl down the drain, she closes her eyes and grips the slick walls of green tile, pretending for a few seconds that none of this has happened. She’s back at Maz’s, taking a shower before going to bed, with no worries on her mind other than what grade she got on her trigonometry test and which college she’ll eventually go to.

The hairs on her body stand up, but it has nothing to do with the cold.

Somebody’s here.

She quickly leans down and grabs the crossbow leaning up against one of the shower wall dividers, then swivels around, her finger on the trigger.

A man is holding up his hands, his chest heaving.

He’s not one of the infected. He looks an awful lot like someone she knew once. A long time ago, in another life.

“Ben?”

She hasn’t seen him in over a year, ever since society collapsed and everything closed, which included Chandrila High. They’d been sixteen then. He’s always been tall, but he used to be lankier, with an awful haircut that showed off his ears. Not that that was any detriment to his social life as one of the most popular boys in school.

But the person standing in front of her now… this is no longer a boy.

He’s still lean, but his frame has filled out with muscles, which she can see even underneath his black sweater. He has a goatee that accentuates a long, angry scar down the right side of his face. And his hair has grown longer and wavier, but there’s no hint of oil or grime weighing it down. With a mild irritation, Rey thinks, _Of course_ Ben Solo would take the time to style his hair in the middle of an apocalypse.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he replies.

“We’ve been traveling West, and then North, and now East again.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” he wonders, his hands still up.

“Rose, Paige, and I. Though an infected got Rose back in Minnesota, so now it’s just Paige and me.”

Ben nods. “Hey Rey?”

Her heart flutters at him saying her name. “Yeah?”

“Could you do me a favor and maybe put the crossbow down?”

“Oh, right.” She lowers it, then finally realizes that she’s naked. Very, _very_ naked.

Instantly, she covers herself with her arms, too embarrassed to look at him.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” she hears him say with amusement in his voice. “We just had an entire conversation with you naked, and my eyes didn’t drift down once.”

It’s true, they didn’t. But that doesn't reassure her; if anything, it makes her feel sad, that he wasn’t even tempted.

“I’ll let you get dressed,” he says.

She nods, and then his footsteps fade and the door closes, and she’s left alone in the shower again. She quickly scrubs herself with the bar of soap left on the ledge, and then after the water is turned off, she stares at herself in the mirror above the sinks, at all of the scars marring her skin. Some are old and white, from bad foster homes. Some are new and still healing. But even without them, she’s too thin, her ribs, collar bones, and hip bones jutting out. She looks like she’s twelve.

No wonder Ben didn’t even look.

She pulls her new clothes back on, secures her weapons, and exist the bathroom. She’s not even out of the gym before she hears laughter.

“Would you be quiet?” she hisses at Ben and Paige. “Do you _want_ to draw them to us?”

They both look chastised.

“Sorry,” Paige says, not really sounding sorry at all.

“Great job guarding the gym, by the way.” Rey doesn’t know why she’s so angry at her. Maybe it has to do with the way Ben is leaning close to her.

“That was my fault,” Ben defends her. “I’m very good at being stealth. It’s how I’ve survived.”

“What are you doing in Corellia, by the way?” Rey knows she sounds suspicious, but she can’t help it. It’s in her nature.

Ben shrugs. “My dad lives here. Or did. He’s dead now.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

There’s an awkward pause before Paige shatters it. “Oh, hey! You should join us! We could use a big, strong man in our group.”

Ben looks at Rey, with her crossbow and holstered gun. “Looks like you don’t need any protection from me.”

Paige turns to Rey. “Don’t you think he should join us?”

Rey shrugs in what she hopes is in a causal way. “If you want. It makes no difference to me.”

Ben nods. “Okay. Yeah, sure. Thank you.” After a few moments, he adds, “I was going to beg you not to leave me anyway by bribing you with rations I found in the outdoor supply store, though I think you would have found them on your own.”

“You shouldn’t just reveal stuff like that,” Rey chastises. “Other people will kill you for far less. I’ve seen it.”

“We’re headed to Naboo,” Paige says. “Or we’re looking for Naboo. Neither of us know if it really exists.”

“It exists,” he says. “I know where it is.”

For the first time in a long time, Rey feels something like hope. “Where?”

“It’s in Italy. My grandparents got married there. But it’s just as likely to be overrun as here.”

“How do you know?” Rey demands, unable to accept this. “The internet’s been down for a year. Maybe the infection hasn't spread across the Atlantic. Maybe—”

“Rey,” Ben interrupts softly but firmly. “Even if we were able to find a plane or a ship that could make the voyage, I don’t know how to navigate, do you?”

“I could figure it out,” she insists.

“With all the controls that take months to learn? We’d die at sea.”

“Well, maybe that’s better than dying here.”

Ben considers her, his eyes flicking down her body. He sighs. “If we ever feel like suicide over being ripped apart and devoured, then fine. But as for some silly fantasy of an untouched paradise... you have to accept that this is it. This is the world now.”

The tiniest bit of hope that Rey's been clinging to, that 's helped her get through the purgatory of these barren days and nights that merge into one long, endless road, slips away. Usually nothing can penetrate her tough exoskeleton, but she feels it: a hit.

“ _We’ve_ been out there, _you_ haven’t. You’ve been here, holed away like a coward.” She regrets this the second it’s out of her mouth, watching him flinch.

Something changes. It’s minuscule, but she can see it. The lines of his body grow rigid and cold, his face hard as stone. His eyes are no longer warm and happy to see her, a familiar person from his past.

She becomes just as much of an enemy as _them_.

*

Weeks go by.

They always stick together, having learned this valuable insight from horror movies. Never split up, never stop stabbing.

One of them always keep watch while the other two sleep—no more than six hours, no exceptions.

One night, Rey’s asleep on one of the deluxe beds on the second floor of Macy’s, when she wakes up at the drop of a pin. She never was a deep sleeper, even back when she only had her old foster father Plutt to worry about.

But what she hears… it’s not the sound of shuffling or inhuman growling. No screaming or crying.

It’s heavy breathing. Panting. Low, soft moans. Springs squeaking back and forth, back and forth.

Rey slowly and quietly glances over to her right. A few beds away, underneath one of the duvets taken from a bed-in-a-bag set, is movement. There’s a small tuft of black hair poking out of the top, but mostly the duvet covers them.

Ben and Paige. Fucking, in the middle of an apocalypse. As if they didn’t have more important things to worry about.

Rey angrily throws her own duvet off, then shoves her feet into her boots and grabs her crossbow. “I guess I’ll take watch then,” she yells at them, acid in her voice.

The moving stops.

“Although if it’s between me or you two, I choose me. Every damn time. Don’t forget that.”

And then she’s stalking out of the store and into the rest of the mall, her finger itching to pull the trigger, wishing for the first time she could kill something.


	11. Death Star 🪐

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angstober 11th prompt:** “This isn’t the way I thought it would be.”
> 
> Loosely based on _Melancholia_.

When Rey used to think about the end of the world as a child, she pictured fire and brimstone and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse—the kind of things they taught in Sunday School. When she thought of the end of the world as an adult, she pictured global warming or mushroom clouds of nuclear bombs. Sometimes a really bad break-up or the pipes freezing in her flat.

What she hadn’t pictured was a rogue planet entering the solar system and colliding with Earth.

For the past thirteen months, scientists had insisted it would be a fly-by. Any collision talk was dismissed as fear-mongering; a conspiracy theory perpetuated by nut jobs on YouTube. Amateur astronomers arranged viewing parties for the fly-by as they did with meteors and comets. Science teachers taught students how to build their own telescope.

But three weeks ago, every newspaper and 5 o’clock news segment suddenly changed. The planet HR 8476—or _Death Star_ , as it had come to be called—would indeed collide with Earth, resulting in complete annihilation. There wasn’t a single fallout shelter that could withstand the impact, though that didn’t stop the companies building them from making a fortune.

The end of the world tended to put things into perspective. People quit their jobs, emptied their savings accounts, and went on long-overdue holidays that they had denied themselves for years. Couples broke up, others got back together. When you have so little time left, every second counted.

Still, others kept doing what they’ve been doing every single day. Even if pay cheques no longer mattered, the routine kept them sane. It kept the world from falling apart sooner than it had to.

Rey Johnson never had much of a life outside of being Mr. Solo’s assistant. In the three years she’d worked for the defense contractor, she’d never taken a holiday. She never even got weekends off. He’s call her at all hours day and night for even the most trivial of things, which were always made out to be a life or death situation. She did everything from pick up his coffee and dry-cleaning to telling his one-night-stands that a cab was waiting for them downstairs and _no, don't call him, he’ll call you._

It was assumed that—being the end of the world and all—Rey would quit too, along with the rest of the staff. But what else was she going to do? Sit around her studio flat and watch period piece after period piece as she cried into a pint of ice cream, realizing that she’ll _definitely_ never get to meet her own Mr. Darcy now?

No, it was better to keep busy. Otherwise the existential despair would set in.

Mr. Solo seemed to think the same. His demands were no longer what they used to be, without any business meetings to run off to or phone calls to return. He even got his own coffee now, and when he’d handed an extra one to Rey this morning, she thought maybe the end of the world had already happened.

*

Rey’s sitting at her desk, staring at her potted plant and thinking poor sod, when Mr. Solo calls her into his office.

She smooths down her skirt and hair before opening the door, to find him standing by the wide windows, staring out into the grey London afternoon.

‘Yes?’

‘I need you to make arrangements,’ he says, still not looking at her. ‘My family has a country house in Shropshire called Organa Hall, which has been vacant for some time. I need it to be stocked full of food and toiletries, as well as fresh linens placed upon all the beds. We leave tonight.’

Rey’s scribbling this down with the pen she always keeps tucked in her hair. When she’s done, she looks up, startled to find him leaning against the desk, staring at her. ‘Who’s “we”?’

‘You and me,’ he says simply, as if it’s obvious.

‘Oh! Um… wouldn’t you prefer to spend the last few days on Earth with your family?’

‘My mother’—he looks down, his Adam’s apple moving as he swallows thickly—‘has made the ridiculous decision to try and track down my father, though god knows where he is. Probably in a whorehouse or already dead. And as for my uncle… well, I’ve spent enough time with him for one lifetime.’

‘Okay. But… do you really want me there, though?’

He doesn’t look like he understands the question. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘I mean… you’re more than capable of making your own coffee. And I don’t think you need any tuxes dry-cleaned anytime soon.’

He smiles wryly. ‘Actually, I think a tux will be perfect. Add that to the list. Along with a 12-year Glenlivet and Macallan. Do you like scotch?’

Rey shakes her head. ‘How about champagne? Whatever you want, add it to the list.’

‘A party at the end of the world? Shall I wear a cocktail dress, too?’ she jokes as she scribbles _lots of alcohol_ down.

‘Yes,’ he says solemnly. She looks up again to find his eyes intensely boring into her. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to see you in green. You wear far too much grey.’

She looks down at herself, at her charcoal pencil skirt, cream blouse, and black cardigan.

‘I wish I could see every colour there is on you.’

He’s still staring at her, and it both thrills her and makes her feel uncomfortable. She wishes there was a guidebook on what to do when the man you’ve been secretly in love with for two years suddenly looks at you the way you’ve always wanted him to, but it’s probably only because the world is ending.

She doesn’t know what to say, so she focuses instead on the list. ‘The collision is in two days. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find any of these things. No one will care about stocking a mansion for a millionaire. They’ll be at home, with their families.’

‘Just do the best you can, then,’ he says in his dismissive voice, the one she knows so well.

‘

Somehow, she manages to find a shop that has some alcohol left. Not exactly what he’s asked for, but the man can’t exactly be picky at this point. Then again, it _is_ Ben Solo.

It’s precisely eight-o-clock when his limo pulls up in front of Rey’s building.

He doesn’t say ‘hello’. He doesn’t say ‘thank you’. The only thing he says, as Rey opens the door and slides into the smooth leather seats is, ‘What is _that_?’

She looks down at the ginger cat whose claws are currently digging into her skin, even though her jumper. ‘BeeBee.’

‘I didn’t know you had a cat.’

‘You never asked,’ she says. ‘I can’t leave him behind. And I’m pretty sure Organa Hall is large enough to fit all of us.’

He nods. ‘Ninety rooms, sixty of which are bedrooms.’

Rey’s jaw drops. ‘Are you mad? Why did you have me arrange every bed to be freshly made if it’s only us two?’

Mr. Solo shrugs. ‘I wanted you to have your pick.’

As the limo pulls into traffic for the three hour drive, Rey looks down at BeeBee, hoping the poor kitty she’d found scrounging through the dumpster will get to catnap on every single bed, going out like a king.

*

When the morning light streams into the room, Rey stretches happily, forgetting for a few moments where she is.

The thick velvet curtains are pulled back, as she wanted to fall asleep with the stars last night. It was rare in the city to see any with all the lights and pollution, but out here in the country, they sparkle like diamonds.

She’d been exhausted by the time they’d reached the house last night, and had chosen the first bedroom she’d come across. The four-poster queen-sized bed is so comfortable, she think she wouldn’t even care if she were to die in it, snuggled up in 1800-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

There’s another reason she slept so soundly—Mr. Solo hadn’t called her once.

She sits up, suddenly worried. What if he’s dead? What if he’s decided to take his life, preferring to die on his own terms?

She wraps a robe around herself, following the scent of freshly-made coffee to the kitchen. The glass door is open, the crisp autumn winds blowing it back and forth, clanging against the stone wall. As she pours the coffee from the cafetière into a mug and heaps teaspoons of sugar into it, she glances through the distorted glass, spying Mr. Solo sitting out on the stone terrace overlooking the sprawling, manicured lawn.

‘Did you sleep well?’ he asks without turning around.

‘I did. Which is strange, considering.’

‘Not that strange,’ he says. ‘There’s a sort of peacefulness about it all, don’t you think?’

Rey considers this. ‘I suppose. Though I still wish it weren’t happening. I wish there was more time.’

He nods distractedly. She sits down on the chair next to him, following his line of vision, trying to discern what it is that has him so fascinated.

As if he could read her mind, he points to the horizon. ‘See that there? That’s where it’ll happen. That bright spot you see?’

Rey can see it. It looks like the moon before the sun has set, a pale outline in the sky, only brighter.

‘That’s the Death Star then? It’s… beautiful. How could something so deadly be so beautiful?’

She looks back at him then, to find him staring at her. He’s always doing that, surprising her with his full attention when she leasts expect it.

‘Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Solo?’ she asks, more out of habit than anything.

‘It’s the end of the world, Rey. We’re going to die together tomorrow. I think we’re beyond formalities now,’ he says.

Rey nods, her heart fluttering at hearing him call her by her first name, which he hasn’t done since her interview two years ago when he read her full name aloud on her CV.

’Call me Ben. Please.’

‘Ben.’ She tries it out, liking the way it sounds on her lips, almost as sweet and delicious as the coffee.

*

Like candles, paper lanterns, and glow-sticks, the Death Star is more beautiful at night. Its blacks are crackling pits, the ghostly pale luminescence making their skin glow in the dark.

They’re standing out on the stone veranda, coupes of champagne in their hands as they stare out at the planet looming in the distance. Their own private viewing party.

Rey feels Ben’s fingertips slowly and lightly caress her neck down to her shoulder, gently pushing off the thin strap of her silk gown, her skin lighting up everywhere he’s touched her.

‘This in’t the way I thought it would be,’ she says.

‘How did you think it would be?’

‘I don’t know. Scarier. But being here with you… like this… I’m okay with it. I’m okay.’

‘You look beautiful in green,’ he says, his voice impossibly deep. She wants to fall into it.

She leans back, against the wide expanse of his chest, feeling the hardness of his muscles underneath the tuxedo. ‘Thank you.’

‘The world is set to end at six in the morning,’ His breath is tickling her neck, shivers tingling down her spine. ‘I want to spend the entire night making love to you.’

‘I want that too,’ she admits, finally able to here, now.

He holds out his hand.

She takes it.


End file.
